Monachopsis
by TNOandXadric
Summary: The scraps of a madman's dreams can hardly be expected to remain stable.
1. Morris: Prologue, 1865

**AN: **This is based primarily on _Wonderland_, but is part of an crossover multiverse encompassing _Once Upon a Time,_ SyFy's _Alice _and _Tin Man_, and _Oz the Great and Powerful _as well._ Once Upon a Tin Wonderland_, for short.

**Warnings:** Minor character death, self-harm, emotional abuse.

* * *

**Part One: Morris**

**Prologue, 1865**

Dodgson stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Hare in the midst of a silver maelstrom. In his hands, he holds a notebook with pages no thicker than a breath, all inscribed with tiny, jagged symbols of his own invention. He reads aloud while the pages flap; his voice is lost to the screeching wind, but the words lace together and reach out through the storm.

Beside him, the Hare punctures an artery with the point of a hatpin and lifts his arm to the storm's writhing center. Starving tendrils snake through the minuscule wound and the Hare screams as the blood is dragged forcibly from his veins. The words and the storm pulse scarlet; Dodgson counts seven heartbeats. The noise climbs to a crescendo.

The dried husk of the Hare crumbles to the ground when the tendrils retract, sated. In the wind's caesura, the notebook falls closed in Dodgson's hands loud as a clap of thunder, and the words flies out in all directions with a fierce shriek. They drive anchors into the roiling earth and the boiling sky as they go. In their wake, the world petrifies.


	2. Morris: Asymmetry

**Asymmetry**

One day Morris carries his notebook and crayons outside to draw the birdsong. He bites his tongue to focus while he scribbles the lime-green bubbles that the robins are making, but the picture is ruined when his sister pushes his shoulders and the crayon makes a spiky line across the page. "Look what you did!" he shouts. His smoky voice scares the birds into being quiet and he feels even worse.

"I'm sorry," Frances says quickly. "Don't tell Mommy. I'll let you join my Tea Party if you promise not to tell!"

Frances _never _lets him join her Tea Parties! "Right now?" he asks. "You really mean it?"

His sister wrinkles her nose up like she's smelled something bad. "Yeah, I guess," she says. "Come on. I'll get the tea and you set the table."

Morris follows her to her room, unable to believe his luck. Once they reach the table Frances is her usual bossy self, but he's happy to obey if it means he gets to be part of the Tea Party. It takes him two tries before the table is set to her standards, and then he can barely sit still while she pours tea into a cup not much bigger than his thumb. "You have to _wait_," she snaps, hitting his hand away when he reaches for the cup. "The March Hare isn't allowed to drink before the Hatter."

"I want to be the Hatter!" he says.

"Well, you can't. _I'm_ the Hatter, because I have the Hat and I have the Teapot." The hat is nothing but a folded piece of paper and the teapot is full of lukewarm water, but she does have a point, so he waits for her to ready her own tea (she gets _sugar _in hers, and he's insanely jealous) before sipping his own.

"Can I be the Hatter next time?" he asks meekly when he has finished his first cup.

Frances glares at him. "It's _my _Tea Party," she says. "If you want to be the Hatter you have to get your own. Besides, you'd break the tea things."

A Tea Party would be no fun alone, so he resigns himself to being the March Hare.

Morris's stomach growls a few minutes later and he's just about to ask Frances if she will pass the cookies she made him steal from the pantry when her bedroom door bangs open and Cornelius stomps in. "Mommy's looking for you, pointy," he mutters, aiming a kick at Morris's chair and hitting his knee instead.

"Ow!" Eyes watering, Morris rubs the injury. It's already beginning to throb. "You hurt me."

"Mommy wants you," Cornelius says. "She's in her office."

"But the March Hare can't just leave the Tea Party," Morris tells him.

"He can if there's a better substitute. I'm older than you, so I'm better."

Morris hangs his head and hands over his teacup and hobbles to find Mommy before Cornelius can see the tears welling up in his eyes. It's stupid to cry, because Cornelius is a whole half hour older and of course that makes him a better March Hare, but Morris was having such a good time and now all he has is a knee that's going to be bruised tomorrow.

Mommy isn't in her office like Cornelius said, but out in the garden, checking on her mushrooms. "Morris, sweet, what's wrong?" she says as soon as she notices him, even though he hasn't let any of the tears spill.

"Cornelius said you wanted me and I had to leave the Tea Party early and stop being the March Hare!" Morris blurts it out at top speed, trying not to sound too much like he blames her for ruining his fun. He sniffles to keep from crying. "And I hurt my knee."

"But I didn't…" Mommy says, frowning, and then her lips press together like they do when she gets _really_ angry. "Why don't you run and color for now, sweetie," she says, and Morris scrambles to do just that. He doesn't like being around Mommy when she yells, and it looks like she's about to yell a lot.

He hides behind the butter bush that grows by the front step and starts to draw the sound the dirt makes when he wiggles his toes in it, but he loses sight of it when Mommy starts shouting for Cornelius to come out of there _this instant_ because he's in _big _trouble this time. Her yelling is bright red and hurts his eyes, but even when he clamps his ears down to his skull and presses his hands over them, he can't make it go away.

* * *

Cornelius is grounded for a week and banned from the dinner table tonight. When Mommy sets the table for five instead of six, the empty place where Cornelius would usually be burns itself into his retinas. Mommy doesn't say anything and neither does Frances or Cyrus, even though he's Cornelius's favorite brother, but when Daddy comes home from work and sees the missing plate his eyes narrow.

"Where's Cornelius? He's not eating with that Oswin friend of his again tonight, is he?" he asks.

"He's not eating at all tonight," Mommy says. "He hurt his brother and he's being punished."

"No he didn't," Morris protests. "It was an accident!"

Daddy claps him on the shoulder so hard he almost topples into the table. "There, you see? Nothing but a little misunderstanding. We can—"

"It was _not _a misunderstanding," Mommy hisses. "You know _very well_ how—" She looks sharply at Morris and cuts herself off. "How these things always work," she finishes, more quietly. Morris stares at his toes and says nothing. He hates it when Mommy's disappointed in him even more than he hates it when she yells.

Daddy frowns and Mommy sets her jaw with an audible click, and Morris sidles out of the dining room miserably. Cyrus follows him, looking pinched. "So you got 'Nelius in trouble again."

"I didn't mean to!" Morris wails. "He told me to find Mommy and when I did she got mad and yelled at him and I don't know why!" Cyrus blinks at him owlishly. "And I went to his door and said I was sorry and he called me a stupid mouse-face." He mashes the end of his too-long nose with his fingertips, enough to hurt. "I don't think he believes me."

"If you really were sorry," Cyrus says, folding his arms, "you wouldn't keep getting him in trouble."

The unfairness of that makes Morris's eyes burn. "I don't try to! I really don't!"

"Why do you always run crying to Mommy, then?" Cyrus asks coolly.

Morris sniffs until the prickling in his eyes goes away. "He told me she was looking for me," he says.

"Sure," Cyrus says. Morris can tell his brother doesn't believe him. "If you say so." He slopes away again, probably to sneak some food out of the pantry for Cornelius.

"He _did_," Morris whispers after he's gone, and then scrubs furiously at his eyes until they are dry again.

* * *

When Mommy comes to tuck him in that night, she makes Morris repeat the three unbreakable rules of the Family before he can snuggle beneath the quilts and sleep. He perches cross-legged between his pillow and the folded-over blankets and gives them to her one by one. "The individual is inconsequential," he says first. That one is the hardest, so he takes extra care not to stumble over all the syllables. "Alices must be protected at any cost. And," he takes a deep breath for the final and most important, "always heed the Protocol."

Mommy kisses his forehead and says, "Well done, dear. Never forget." Pride colors her voice magenta.

"I won't, Mommy," he tells her while she pulls the blankets around him to make a nest, just the way he likes it. Usually this is where their nightly ritual ends, but this time he has to ask. "Mommy?"

"Yes, sweet?"

"Will I ever meet an Alice?"

Her smile looks sad, but he doesn't know why. She's always told him that Alices mean one big party throughout all of Wonderland, even the parts he's never seen. "I'm sure you will, sweetheart. Someday." She gives his forehead an extra kiss. "Now go to sleep."


	3. Morris: Inculcation

**Inculcation**

Morris was really excited to start school, but so far the only thing their old rabbit tutor, Silvagus, has talked about is the three unbreakable rules, and Morris already knows those. He tries doodling the rabbit's wheezy, straw-colored voice in the margins of his work book, but without his crayons he can't get the color right and it just looks like wobbly ink.

Silvagus raps on the corner of his desk with a ruler and says, "Do you find this boring, young man?" His big, bushy grey eyebrows draw together over his eyes, and Morris tries to disappear into his chair.

"Nosir," he squeaks.

"Then perhaps you could share with your siblings the third unbreakable rule?"

Morris nods, relieved that he's not going to get into even more trouble. "Always heed the Protocol," he recites dutifully.

The huge eyebrows bounce, although Morris doesn't know why the tutor should be so surprised. "And can you explain for us what the Protocol is?" he asks. He doesn't sound angry anymore, just curious.

Now Morris is on shakier ground, because Mommy's explanations had been long and hard to follow, but he gives it a try anyway. "It lives in the very deepest burrow and makes Wonderland not get sick," he says. "And we have to take care of it because the firstHare was the one who made it."

"Correct, in essentials," Silvagus says, drawing out the words so that they turn the color of dry dirt instead of straw. "Nonetheless, young man, you must pay better attention."

Morris bows his head and nods. "Yessir."

* * *

When they leave the classroom, Cornelius jostles him and he almost trips, and then by the time he rights himself, all his siblings are nearly out of sight around the curve of the burrow. He has to run to catch up. "Wait!" he calls after them, but Frances is the only one who even slows down. "Mommy said we had to walk back _together_," he tells her when he's close enough.

She glares at him. "You think you're so much better than us, don't you?" she says, her voice red just like Mommy's when Mommy gets angry.

Morris stares at his shoes miserably. They're in need of a wash from scuffling in the dirt so much. "I don't think anything that's not true," he reminds her. _She's _not the one who got in trouble today, after all.

She makes a noise like plums and paper cuts and shoves him, so hard that he bounces against the rough wall and loose earth rains down on his head. "See, that's why you have no friends," she says, a stain of red that is the only thing he can see through his watering eyes. He hears her footsteps fading down the burrow, and he waits until they're gone before he wipes his eyes and straightens his shirt.

* * *

He comes to a fork in the burrow and doesn't know which direction will take him home. His first thought is to look for footprints, but the sandy floor has been tamped down by hundreds upon hundreds of rabbits, and he can't pick out his siblings' trail from the countless others. Home, Morris knows, is much nearer the surface, so he chooses the path that leads upwards.

After only a few dozen paces, however, the tunnel begins to slant downward again and branches off in nine different directions, so he turns around and goes back the way he came. He has no more luck with the second passage, which dives deep into the earth from the very beginning.

Morris gives up and goes back to the fork, where he huddles against the wall and waits for someone to pass by. He's acutely aware of the minutes clicking by, and to distract himself from the thought of how Mommy must be worried sick by now he imagines he's able to feel the world itself turning beneath him.

At long last, a plump rabbit with enormous, droopy ears lopes up from the downward passage. She stops when she sees him, her eyes widening. "Oh, sweetie," she says. "Are you lost?" Her voice is the color of a fresh green apple.

"Uh-huh," he says, sniffling because his eyes are filling with tears again and he doesn't want to prove Cornelius's latest insult—crybaby—right. The rabbit takes him by the hand and he follows her into the branch of the burrow that he tried first, scrubbing at his eyes with his free arm.

"Where do you live?" she asks. "The scrapes on the edge of the forest?"

Another sniff and his eyes are mostly dry. "Above those, in the boulder field," he tells her.

She gives his hand a comforting squeeze. "How'd you get all the way down here, then?" she asks.

Haltingly, he tells her about their first lesson and how they were all supposed to walk back together. "But they're all faster than me," he says. "I'm the littlest. I couldn't keep up." He does not mention that Frances pushed him, or that he could have kept up if she hadn't; Cornelius always says that tattletales are as bad as crybabies.

* * *

Mommy is screaming louder than he's ever heard before when he gets back. Morris creeps in to the living room, where Cornelius, Cyrus, and Frances are all lined up while Mommy yells at them. Tears are dripping down Frances's cheeks, Cyrus's face looks dead, and Cornelius is scowling at the threadbare carpet.

"TOLD YOU TO STAY TOGETHER, CORNELIUS, YOU'RE THE ELDEST, I EXPECT MORE FROM YOU—" Mommy shrieks. None of them notice Morris crouching in the doorway, petrified.

"He was being a brat," Cornelius grumbles. Morris flinches.

"HE COULD GET HURT! HE COULD WANDER INTO THE PROTOCOL AND WE'D NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN! AND IT WOULD BE _ALL—YOUR—FAULT!_"

At this point Morris can tell she's getting ready to deliver a _really _big punishment, so he gathers his courage and edges timidly into the room. "Mommy," he says. Mommy stops shouting mid-word and the next thing he knows her arms are around him and she's showering kisses on his hair.

"Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea how glad I am to see you. Are you hurt? Are you all right?" She keeps babbling while she shuffles back enough to check him over frantically for injuries.

"'m fine," Morris assures her, and she pulls him into another, even tighter hug.

"Can we go now?" Cornelius asks, his voice spiked with livid green.

Mommy lets go of Morris and rounds on him. "No you may not!" she shouts, "You're going to sit _right here_ and think about what you did! And when your father gets home he and I will decide how you're going to be punished, because it's clear grounding isn't enough!" Her voice edges up higher and higher until it's almost white, and Morris screws up his eyes against the brightness.

* * *

That night, Mommy doesn't make him repeat the unbreakable rules like she usually does. Instead she tucks him in right away and then sits on the edge of his bed, stroking his hair and saying nothing. He wonders if she's still thinking about his siblings, who have all been assigned a month of working in the garden on top of a regular grounding. His stomach clenches guiltily every time he thinks about it.

"Mommy?" he asks at last, when he can take it no longer. "Why do you get so angry at them?"

Her hand stops moving until he squirms to remind her of what she was doing. "They are terribly cruel to you, sweetheart, that's why."

"But…" Morris frowns. "They don't mean it." He's sure they don't. They're his _siblings_.

"Oh, Morris," Mommy says, and nothing else, but she curls around him and kisses the top of his head. "I love you more than anything, sweet," she tells him after a while. "You know that."

"Me and Cornelius and Cyrus and Frances," he corrects her.

"Of course," she whispers. Her voice turns brown like dried blood; Morris has never seen it like that before.

He twitches uncomfortably and changes the subject. "What would have happened if I'd found the Protocol?" he asks. It's been bothering him all day; if the Protocol keeps Wonderland healthy, then surely it's not a bad thing?

"It doesn't like to be interrupted, that's all," Mommy says lightly, but her voice is still the wrong color.

"Would it have hurt me?" He doesn't know quite why this is so important to him, but he keeps hearing what Mommy said earlier. _We'd never see him again_…

"It may have. Don't think about it, sweet."

"But why? I thought it was nice," Morris says, hurt.

Mommy is quiet for a long time, and then she says, "Not to individuals."

"Oh," he says.


	4. Morris: Lost and Found

**Lost and Found**

On the second anniversary of their lessons in the burrow, Silvagus takes them to the hospital. Others have joined them over the years, a brawny hare named Eamon who always seems on the brink of leaping up to box their tutor around the ears, three identical rabbits named Sadie, Cherice, and Jocelyn, with whom Frances always looks awkward and ungainly, and Ocho, a tiny pika who's even smaller than Morris and whom, for reasons unknown, Eamon is fiercely protective of.

While his classmates push the limits of Silvagus's patience by rushing ahead or pressing their noses up against the windows of patient rooms, Morris keeps his head down and shuffles along in their teacher's wake. He knows why they're here, because Mommy warned him about it while she packed his lunch this morning, and he understands enough about the Protocol now to know that he doesn't want to see.

Noise echoes weirdly in the hospital halls, drifting like tufts of pink and turquoise pollen overhead, and as they draw nearer to the Ward for the Terminally Rewritten, Morris tries to focus on that. When they reach the ward itself, though, he finds he can't pull his eyes away from the staring, empty ones of the rewritten patients. Every last one of them sits on the edge of their hospital bed, rocking like treetops in a gentle breeze. Some of them drool; others mouth words without ever making sound.

None of them blink.

"This is the cost of refusing the Protocol," Silvagus says quietly. Even Eamon and Cornelius, usually the troublemakers of the class, have gone still. Morris is sure he's not the only one who can feel the procession of pinpricks down his spine, as if the Protocol itself is echoing the elderly rabbit's words.

* * *

By the time they leave the hospital and Silvagus has declared their lessons done for the day, his siblings are back to their normal selves. Frances scampers off with the rabbit triplets, giggling about something or other, and Cyrus bounds away toward the forest with Cornelius close on his heels.

Morris makes his way home slowly, feeling like his school bag weighs a hundred pounds. Mommy has cookies and a big glass of rath milk waiting for him, just like always, but it doesn't taste as good as it usually does. "How was the hospital?" she asks, in that voice like dried blood that he's grown so familiar with over the last few years.

He shrugs. "I have a lot of homework," he says. It's not true, but his fingers are itching for a pen and he's not in the mood to talk. Mommy doesn't say a word when he goes to lock himself in his room.

For the rest of the afternoon, he crouches beneath his desk and draws patient after patient: the black bear with the milky eyes and his fur falling out; the shrunken, slack-jawed woman that Silvagus had identified as the former Three of Spades; the bat with her wings bound up in a straight-jacket for her own safety, her mouth twisted in a silent scream; on and on and on, until he reaches the last one, a wilting violet with half her petals gone and her leaves shriveled and brown.

His wrist aches from drawing so fast for so long, but he ignores it while he carefully arranges the patients into the proper order, labeling them in the corner with the room number that belonged to them. When he finishes and the corners are all lined up, he shoves them into a drawer and crawls into bed, not tired enough to sleep but still hesitant to venture out to the rest of the house.

Mommy knocks on his door after a while to say that dinner is ready, but he calls back that he isn't hungry and he hears her footsteps fade away again.

* * *

There is a boulder above their house that Morris likes to climb, because the thick scrawls of burnt-orange lichen in the crags of the granite echoes the clouds the wind throws up when it hits the rock. Tonight, though, the wind is silver instead of orange and it chases him up the boulder's curve so fast his hands bleed, and even when he gets to the very top, the silver rises. He clings to his perch until the wind picks him up and flings him away.

He sinks beneath the shiny grey waves and it curls against his face, leaving tracks of ice wherever it touches, and when he's the right way up again, he's looking out of the windows of a hospital room while mile after mile of people pass by. _I'm not rewritten_, he tries to scream, but all that comes out is formless mist.

Morris has never woken up screaming before.

* * *

Mommy comes rushing in a few minutes later, frantic. "What's wrong, sweetie?" she asks, over and over, but Morris's throat doesn't seem to be working right. He hides in her shoulder and trembles while she strokes his back and makes soft, comforting noises until he's calm enough to speak.

"I had a bad dream," he whispers. It isn't enough to describe the twisty, cold feeling in his stomach. "A _really_ bad dream."

"Because of the hospital?" she guesses, and Morris nods. He counts seconds and then minutes while she says nothing, and then, "Why don't you get dressed and put on your shoes, sweet."

"Why?" he asks, but she doesn't say and he does what he's told.

Mommy takes his hand and leads him out of the house. It's very cold out, and the chilly wind makes his nose stick and the back of his throat itch. He coughs, and tries to breathe as little as possible. "Where are we going?" he hisses so he won't have to open his mouth too wide.

But he knows, even though she won't answer him, because there's only one place they could be going. He isn't surprised when she leads him into the burrow, but when she makes a turn and they plunge deeper and deeper into the earth, he clings even tighter. "Where are we going?" he asks again.

"The Protocol is a gift," she tells him. He recognizes this lecture and, although he wants to, hiding is no longer an option. "Had Dodgson and the first Hare not written it, Wonderland would have collapsed long ago, and it is better to have a harsh life than no life at all, is it not?" Morris nods, and even in the gloom of the burrow he can see her smile fondly at him. "Most are unaware of its presence and must progress blindly, by instinct alone. If they defy those instincts…" She trails off instead of finishing that sentence like she usually does, and Morris thinks of glassy eyes and listless mouths and shudders.

"We are the guardians of the Protocol and it communicates us more freely than with the others. It allows us a warning when we overstep. Heed its warnings, and your mind will stay your own. Be grateful that you have a choice at all."

"Yes," he says. "But why?"

"Because choice means chaos, and without chaos, Wonderland could not exist." She smiles again, sadly. "The Protocol enforces order, because it must, but it cannot enforce _too_ _much_ order, because that is exactly what it is protecting us from. Do you understand?"

"That's a contradiction," he says.

"Wonderland is a contradiction," Mommy says. She gives his hand a squeeze that is probably meant to be comforting, but all it does is make his stomach curdle even more. "We've reached the final descent. You might want to hold your breath."

He obeys, but the bitter stench of the Protocol worms its way up his nose anyway and his eyes sting while he empties the contents of his stomach onto the ground. Mommy crouches next to him and rubs his back until his insides stop churning. "You will get used to it, and then it will be better," she tells him.

* * *

He can't climb the boulder anymore, not without remembering the feel of the Protocol crystalizing his cheeks. For a few days he tries hiding under the butter bush by the front steps like he did when he was younger, but he's too big to fit comfortably anymore and when he touches the firm soil around the roots, Morris can feel the Protocol vibrating up his limbs.

He hides in his room instead, but now that he knows what to look for the Protocol is everywhere, poised and waiting for him to step wrong. "Go AWAY!" he screams at it, when he can stand it no longer, but it only settles more deeply into his pillow and solidifies around his tongue.

The others hear, and he can see the mustard waves of Cornelius's jeers even if he can't make out the exact words. His eyes burn with shame and he slinks out the back door before anyone can find him. It takes him over an hour to find a tree that isn't too hidden under the links of the Protocol's chains, and then he doesn't hesitate before jumping for the nearest branch.

The bark scrapes his hands when he hauls himself up and the Protocol makes his jaws ache, but he pays it no mind and scrambles for the next foothold. He doesn't climb very fast because he has never scaled anything but rocks before and he's not sure of his way. As he leaves the ground behind, though, the air clears of the clammy reek that he hasn't been able to escape from since the night in the burrow, and he starts to see real sounds again instead of imagined ones. The twittering birds are bursts of limey static to compliment the little geysers of kelly green from the wood creaking beneath his feet. Beyond that, the sounds of the forest smear into a swaying quilt of color, brighter even than the one that Mommy made him for his last birthday, and the higher he climbs the more it glitters.

When the branches start to wobble beneath him, he knows he's gone too high and he crouches close to the trunk, unwilling to climb down and leave this bright world where the Protocol barely exists just yet. He closes his eyes instead, and the skritching of bark against his cheek makes sprays of little dots the color of a ripe peach. The honey-colored blotch of Mommy's calls reaches his ears from far below, and he wonders what she would do if he never came home, besides punish his siblings for infractions both real and imagined.

The branch is a sickeningly livid orange when it snaps, and Morris falls too fast to scream. A fist of leaves smacks him in the jaw halfway down, and then when he hits the ground and there's a spike of even sharper orange from his own arm. His scream whirls around him white and brown and black until the surface closes over his head and he drowns.

Then he blinks and a strange woman's face swims into focus above him. He starts to think it's going to be okay, but his next heartbeat is enough to flood his eyes with searing light from pain so bad he can't even hear his own scream. Something hot and sickly sweet fills his mouth, and the light fuzzes to grey and then, more slowly, to nothing.

When he wakes again, he's lying in a bed instead of dirt and Mommy is peering down at him through a the haze that hangs before his eyes. His mouth feels like velvet and tastes like rotting treacle. He tries to ask, "What happened?" but what comes out is more like "Fwrr?"

Mommy pushes a stray lock of hair out of his eyes and tucks it behind his ear. "Your arm's broken, darling," she says. "Whatever were you thinking, climbing trees like that? You could have been killed." He mouths justifications that come out like spilled pea soup, which is just as well because this way, no one but Morris will get in trouble. Mommy shushes him, still stroking his hair. "Be more careful next time, my dear. Promise me."

There is nothing to do but nod.

* * *

It takes a long time before he can sit up without making his arm hurt worse than ever. He gets to stay home from lessons and Mommy takes care of him and teaches him what he's missing, and he memorizes the fuzzily sweet taste of the jasmine tea she uses to dull the pain. His arm is swathed in a huge roll of plaster, which the doctor told him he could have his friends write messages on. So far the only words on it are from Mommy and an insult that Cornelius wrote while he was sleeping that hasn't completely faded away despite Mommy's scrubbing.

When he gets well enough to walk around without jasmine and without hurting, Mommy sends him to the scrapes on the edge of the forest to visit the boy who found him after he fell. Morris has hazy memories of a woman he supposes must be the boy's mother, who Mommy tells him is a cook for the court.

"I don't want to," he tells her while she bakes a thank-you cake for him to deliver. People his age don't ever like him very much, and Morris would rather stay at home where he's safe. Mommy won't be swayed, though, so he walks over in fits and starts and hides behind the tray after he knocks on the door.

The boy who opens it is built on a huge scale, like Cornelius only even larger, and he has the biggest ears Morris has ever seen. "Oh," he says, and Morris's eyes cross from trying to follow the bright metallic spring of his voice. "You're that kid who jumped out of the tree."

"I _fell_," Morris protests.

The other boy shrugs. "Looked like you jumped to me," he says. "What's that?" He points at the covered tray in Morris's arms.

"'s a cake," Morris says, just like Mommy told him to. "To say thank you for—"

"Right, right," the boy says, holding the door open and beckoning for Morris to come in. "My parents are out. They fought this morning before Mom left for work and Dad always goes fishing after that happens. I'm Franco. What's your name?"

Morris puts the cake down with great care, wincing when it catches the edge of his cast. "Morris," he mumbles.

"What were you doing in that tree, anyway?" Franco asks. He tilts up the cover to examine the cake, then experimentally scrapes up a bit of the green icing with a finger.

"Climbing," Morris says.

Franco snorts. "_Why_." He takes another finger's worth of icing.

"No one would leave me alone," Morris says after a moment's consideration.

"Punch 'em in the face next time," Franco advises him solemnly.

Morris winces at the thought of what would happen if he tried to hit Cornelius. Let alone the Protocol. "I don't think that would work."

"Yeah, you are kind of scrawny." Franco thinks for seven seconds, and then, "_I _could punch them for you."

"I don't want that either," Morris says, wincing again. Franco is a lot bigger than Cornelius, and he'd hate for his big brother to get hurt.

"You're never going to get anywhere if you don't fight for yourself," Franco says, frowning.

"That's not true! I can run faster than anyone!"

Franco gives him a long, skeptical look and then twitches his enormous ears like he's trying to shake off a fly. "That's not really what I meant. Look. You can't just sit and take it when people bother you."

"Easy for you to say," Morris grumbles. "You're a giant."

Franco just grins and says, "Have some cake."

* * *

Franco strolls into Silvagus's classroom a few days after the cake incident and flops into the seat beside Morris as if this is how it's been for years instead of a few minutes. Morris can see Cornelius and Eamon sizing him up, but Franco doesn't seem to notice. He's bigger than both of them, so he's allowed not to care.

"What are you doing here?" Morris asks, bewildered.

"I heard Silvagus's classes were more advanced than Reasbeck's," Franco says with a careless shrug. "I like to be challenged. Speaking of which…" He gives Morris a shrewd look. "You don't look as fast as you say you are."

"I am so!" Morris says indignantly.

"So prove it." Franco folds his arms on the desk and scowls in a way that Morris thinks is meant to be a smile, because it turns up at the corners. "Race me back to the scrapes after we're done here."

Morris sniffs. "I'm going to win," he says.

Franco says, "We'll see."

* * *

The lesson seems to drag on forever and Franco looks just as bored as Morris is. He enjoys the opportunity to not be the only one who doesn't need pages and pages of notes to keep up, but his mind is mostly on the promise of a race. He hasn't run at all since the tree, but his arm almost never hurts now and the cast isn't that heavy so it shouldn't slow him down too much.

Finally, Silvagus tells them to go and Franco is already halfway out of his seat and bolting for the door. Morris lets out a cry of outrage and sprints after him, ignoring the way his arm twinges as he hits his stride. The burrow's sharp turns and twists keep him from his top speed, but when they break the surface and the enormous field that separates the burrow from the hare scrapes, it's a matter of seconds before he streaks past Franco with a whoop of triumph.

He slows down as they get closer to the edge of the field, and Franco catches up with him, panting. "Told you I'd win," Morris says smugly. "Even though you cheated."

"It's not cheating, it's strategy," Franco tells him with a superior air. "See you around, Morris." He slopes off toward his house. Morris watches until he's out of sight, then rubs his arm—now that he's not moving, it aches terribly—and heads home himself, smiling.


	5. Morris: Center

**Center**

The tenth year of any Hare's life is an Event which well deserves the capital letter. Morris's litter is the youngest in their class, and the others wait impatiently for them to cross into the land of double digits so they can all reap the benefits. There will be no party when it happens, because that would take too much time. The day before is spent in careful review, and Morris's stomach grows heavier and heavier from dread with each second that swims past.

On the morning when Silvagus is to take them all down to meet the Protocol, Morris tries to be sick. He shoves his fingers down his throat and, when that doesn't work, climbs onto his wardrobe and dangles upside down from it until the blood rushes to his head and makes it pound harder than even the Protocol, but it's no use. Mom takes one look at him and knows he's faking.

"I don't want to go," he pleads, a final, desperate hope.

"It won't be as bad as you think," Mom says. "The Protocol knows you already. This time, it won't make you ill."

"Mommy, _please_," he says, but when the time comes she hustles him out the door with the rest of his siblings.

They are bouncy with excitement, having no real idea of what is waiting for them in the burrow. Cornelius pounds him on the shoulder, hard, and says, "What's the matter, mouse-face? You're not scared, are you?" He drags the words out into drooping strands the color of vomit.

"Don't call me that," Morris mutters.

Frances at least tries to be helpful. "Cheer up," she tells him, after Cyrus has run a little ahead and Cornelius chased after him, shouting. "We're not going to be little kids anymore after today."

"And we're not adults for another five years," Morris says. "We're going to be nothing. No one cares about in-betweens." His head is full of glazed eyes and forgotten names and bodies that are alive without ever living.

"For Dodgson's _sake_, Morris," says Frances, irritated now. "Do you ever do anything but whine?"

He bites back an angry retort because she's so frustrated with him already, and he doesn't want to make it worse. Instead he says, "Tie your hair back before we go down."

"It's in braids already, stupid."

"Tie them back."

Frances makes an ecru noise of disgust and hurries forward, calling for Cornelius and Cyrus to wait up. Morris doesn't bother trying to catch them and walks by himself with his toes dragging up dust.

* * *

Morris is the last to arrive and the classroom is abuzz with excitement. Frances is chattering with the rabbit triplets, her braids swinging in time with the rapid movement of her hands while the rabbits giggle; Eamon and Ocho are more reserved, although Ocho's lemon-yellow whistle is even higher than usual today and they have, for once, allowed Cornelius and Cyrus to join in. Franco is the only one not talking, but he catches Morris's eye and slouches over.

"You look awful," he says.

Morris says, "I don't know why everyone's so eager."

"Mother made a cake," Franco suggests. There is indeed a covered tray that looks like it might conceal some kind of desert, but whatever it is will have to wait until after the descent, and Morris doubts any of them will feel up to eating afterwards. Already his stomach is buckling in protest.

Silvagus arrives and instantly there is a clamor from which Morris can pick out only the occasional word. The gist is "Can we go now _please_," and Silvagus wastes no time in ushering them out into the corridor.

"Form a line," Silvagus tells them, and Morris shuffles into place dead last, behind Franco. The journey down the maze of tunnels feels like a march into battle; he can feel the Protocol growing heavier and heavier as they get nearer to its heart. Soon it is palpable, a hot, sticky miasma hanging in the air. Traces of silver lick up and down the walls and etch patterns in the ceiling. One of them catches his foot and he stumbles right into Franco, whose jaw is clenched so tightly that Morris worries his teeth will break.

The rest of them have noticed, too; Morris can see it in the sweat trickling down the back of Cyrus's neck, the way Frances keeps tugging on the ends of her braids. The triplets have stopped their endless giggling and progress more slowly than before, holding each other's hands with white knuckles. Only Silvagus doesn't seem bothered by the Protocol's dense pressure.

Although he has only been here once before, Morris recognizes the twist in the passageway that comes right before the cavern proper, and he drops back a few steps and prepares to hold his breath when Silvagus leads them into it. Cornelius goes in first, his face a grim mask but his steps never faltering. Cyrus trails after him like a shadow, and then the triplets, and then Eamon with one hand resting protectively on Ocho's shoulder. Morris can hear them all retching, and Frances shoots him a worried look before flipping her braids behind her shoulders and going in herself.

Franco unlocks his jaw enough to mutter something that might have been "good luck," and leaves Morris alone outside.

Morris tip-toes to the edge of the heart, holding his breath as if it will do any good against the oily, inescapable stench. Inside, the walls pulse with intricate webs of silver light, and his classmates are huddled together in various states of distress. Pale, yellow-brown vomit is splattered around them, and a pair of solemn grey pikas are mopping it up without a word.

The Protocol still burns his nose and squeezes his chest, but Morris doesn't feel as sick as he was last time; encouraged by this, he ventures further into the room. The hugeness of the ceiling is supported by three stone columns, each polished to a shine and carved with a network of twisting symbols that makes the backs of his eyes ache to look at them. Threads of more colors than Morris knows names for stretch in every direction out from the pillars: down to the floor, out to the walls, up to the ceiling that he must squint to see. From his lessons he knows that they spread through the whole of Wonderland and the Looking Glass Land beyond, practically invisible outside of this room. Some of them point to his classmates, prodding at exposed skin or slithering up arms. Several more lead to his own chest, and when he pulls his collar out to look, he sees them blending seamlessly into the skin over his collarbone.

The skin on the back of his neck crawls like it's trying to remove itself from his body, and he scrambles back toward the exit. Silvagus is there, shepherding the others out one by one, his filmy yellow eyes narrowed in thought. "You handled it well, young man," he says. "Better than most." He sounds impressed.

Morris says nothing.

* * *

The procession back to the classroom is much quieter than the one that went down only an hour or two ago. Ocho is still sobbing hysterically despite Eamon's attempts to comfort him, and the only sound besides that and the shadows of their footsteps is Silvagus's intermittent comments that Morris must be made of much sterner stuff than they all thought. Morris wishes he would stop; Cornelius has recovered enough to glare daggers at him.

"The only reason," Cornelius says loudly as Silvagus tries to start again, "that _he _didn't get sick is that he _cheated_." Morris flinches. Neither he nor Mom had told anyone of what happened that night two years ago, but clearly Cornelius was clever enough to figure it out on his own.

"Cheated?" Silvagus repeats, looking blank. "What on earth do you mean?"

Cornelius points an accusing finger that feels like a blade. "He got mother to take him down _years _ago, didn't you, mousey? Didn't you? So you could rub it in our faces how much better you are than us?"

"No," Morris says, but Cornelius just sneers.

"You're nothing but a rotten, spoiled brat," he spits.

"That's quite enough," Silvagus says. The damage has been done, however, and even Franco looks unsettled. "Is this true, young man?"

Morris says, "No." Hares aren't allowed into the heart before their tenth birthday, and Mom will get in trouble if he admits the truth. The lie still makes his stomach bubble in a way much worse than the Protocol ever could. His head is spinning. "I want to go home," he whispers.

"He does look really sick, sir," Franco says, placing a hand on Morris's shoulder. It helps make the world settle again. "Maybe it's the Protocol and he just took longer than us. I can take him home."

Silvagus gives them his permission to leave early, and Cornelius looks enraged. Morris squeezes his eyes shut while he lets Franco steer him out of the burrow. As soon as the fresh air hits his face he feels better. "Did you really see it early?" Franco asks after a minute.

"Mom took me when I was eight," Morris admits. Some of the tightness in his lungs eases.

"Okay," Franco says.

"I don't think I'm better than anyone," Morris says. He feels well enough now to stand up on his own and he shrugs out of Franco's grip.

"I know you don't. Come on, let's get out of here."

* * *

Franco sets off at an easy lope, not toward the scrapes but in the opposite direction, toward the place where the forest that rings this field starts to thin out. Morris jogs after him. "Where are we going?" he asks.

"I'm sick of this place and I don't want to mope around listening to my parents fighting _again_," Franco says. "So let's _r_un!" Without any more warning than that, he kicks into a sprint, and Morris grins and lunges after him. They have to slow down when the forest begins again, but they keep going, dodging between trees and leaping over fallen branches. Morris paces himself so Franco can keep up, but the air still rushes by his ears fast enough that he can't hear anything else, so his vision is mostly clear except for the eddies of wind.

They come to a path eventually and, without having to consult first, they follow it. It's uneven and full of rocks, but Morris relishes the challenge of keeping up his speed without turning an ankle, and judging by the way Franco surges ahead, his friend feels the same way. "You'll never catch me!" he shouts, and Morris is happy to prove him wrong.

The forest end as abruptly as if the tree line had been drawn with a ruler, and the path fades to a halt not long after that on the rocky scree of the hill rising before them. By silent agreement, he and Franco slow to a walk to take in their new surroundings. There are a few scraggly little trees still clinging to life on the hill, but the main feature is a huge, crumbly building lined with doors which rests at the very top. Franco leads the way up; by the time they reach the building, Morris is sticky with sweat from the blazing sunlight.

They try several of the doors, but they're all locked tight. Eventually they come to a very small one, out of which wave after wave of water gushes and turns into a river that roars down the hillside, leaving a white crust along its banks. Morris sticks his fingers in it to taste. "It's salty," he reports. "I'll bet I know where we are."

"The Pool of Tears?" Franco squints up through the ferocious sunlight to the top of the building, and Morris follows his lead. It's so high that the top is shrouded by wispy clouds. "Let's climb and see!" Morris would prefer to keep his feet firmly on the ground, but Franco smirks and says, "Don't worry, I'm bigger than you. I'll catch you if you try to jump off." Morris glowers at him. "I mean I won't let you _fall_. Now come on!"

So they climb. The weathered, craggy stones provide easy holds, and although Franco has an easier time of it by way of being much taller, Morris manages well enough. It takes them a long time to reach the sun-blacked top of the tower, which turns out to be roofless. They perch carefully on the edge, and Morris chances a look at the ground which makes his head swim; the tree which he fell out of wasn't even half this height.

"Look at the _water_," Franco says, sounding as close to awe as Morris has ever heard. He does so, and is surprised to find the water only a few inches below his toes. It hisses and pops angrily at them, and vapor rises off of it in huge clouds. There are bits of sodden wood and what looks like the remains of a piano floating in it, and a fine film of dead insects lines the edges. Franco rearranges himself on their ledge so that his fingertips skate over the water. It bubbles up and slaps his wrist, and he jerks away. "It's hot!" he says.

"It's the sunlight, I'll bet." Morris shades his eyes and looks out; he can see the distant glimmer of the sea, and the miles and miles of the Fractal Forest spread out like blotches of moss on granite.

"Will it ever drain all the way, do you think?"

Morris snorts. "Don't be stupid," he says. "Nothing ever changes in Wonderland."

"We do," Franco points out.

"Yeah, well," Morris says, thinking of the Rules, "we're not important. Not like the Pool of Tears."

They're both quiet for a long time. "We should get back," Franco says after a while.

The climb down takes twice as long as the climb up.

* * *

He has just said goodbye to Franco and is halfway home when the day abruptly melts into night. The transition takes less than a heartbeat; Morris blinks, and the sky is the color of ink. Bunches of stars glitter down at him, as does the yellow sliver of a crescent moon. He quickens his footsteps, but by the time he reaches his house the air has turned icy and his breath turns to puffs of vapor.

Usually, it is Mom who greets him when he comes home. This time, it is Dad, looking more haggard than usual in his oversized and faded smoking jacket. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" he asks as soon as the door has latched shut behind Morris.

"Twelve and fourteen," Morris says instantly. Dad's eyes narrow. "I was with Franco." If it were Mom, he might venture to mention the Pool of Tears and how he'd never before realized how _big_ Wonderland really is, but Dad prefers to stay grounded in hard fact and cold realities.

"Morris," Dad says, each syllable a navy brick, "you are ten years old. You cannot squander Time like a child anymore." Morris stares at his shoes and says nothing. "You have to learn some self-restraint," Dad continues, not unkindly, "or you'll never succeed at anything. Do you understand?"

"Yes, dad," Morris says.

Dad pats him on the head. "What you need is to get out of the house, meet some new people. Get a taste of what the world is like outside the Family."

"Yes, dad," Morris squeaks while he tries to disappear into the floor.

"For now, get some sleep."

Morris is only too happy for the opportunity to flee to his room, but he doesn't sleep. Instead, he goes to his desk and clicks on the lamp before reaching for his pens and his crayons. He draws all night, until he is satisfied with the reproduction of what he saw this afternoon.

* * *

Dad is as bad as his word and sends Morris into the forest the very next day, saying that as long as he has a day off from school to recover from the Protocol he ought to spend it wisely. "Where should I go?" Morris asks, just before Dad leaves him behind to go to his job training new ferret hunters.

"Anywhere," Dad says. "Just as long as you stay in the forest and steer clear of the Heart Palace." He tousles Morris's hair and jogs away.

The Fractal Forest seems much more intimidating now than it did when he ran through it yesterday with Franco, and he strains his ears for threatening noises as he picks his way from tree to tree. He comes to the path that leads out to the Pool of Tears eventually, but this time Morris goes left instead of right. The path is less lonely and less frightening than his aimless wanderings, so he stays on it until he comes to a fork.

There's a rotting signpost stuck in the middle of the path, propped up with newer sticks and small rocks and a thin metal rod to which the original post is tied with a fraying red ribbon. The arrow to the right has "MAD HATTER" scribbled on it in shaky letters; the other has "MARCH HARE" written much more neatly, and that is all he needs to know where he is. Everyone knows about the Tea Party.

Morris takes the left path, reasoning that even for a member of the Tea Party, Family ties would mean _something_, so it was safer. Bouquets of color—pink and blue and gold speckled with green—tumble from around a bend in this path, and sure enough, when he rounds the corner, the sight of a Party in full swing assaults his eyes.

Morris crouches in the shadow of the tree line, watching. A sloppily dressed frog strums an instrument that looks like it's melting, and the music spins and arcs and mutates overhead in a kaleidoscope of dissolving, shifting colors; it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and it takes him a while to notice the rest of the Party. The table is laid out beneath a sprawling oak tree, on a rise just above what must be the March Hare's house, and there are people dancing on it: a couple of flamingos performing a jittery two-step, and the Four of Diamonds with his hat askew attempts a waltz with a little wisp of a skink on the other end of the table.

The Hatter himself sits in a vast velvet armchair, conducting the frog's music with his cup and slopping steaming tea all down his arm. From his other hand dangles a pocket watch, and every now and then he lifts it above his sequined hat and swings it in rapid circles. It takes Morris a bit longer to locate the March Hare, for he's dressed in a tweed suit that fades into the background when surrounded by the sheer volume of color that the Tea Party has to offer. His head looks like a dandelion, with tufts of greying hair matted with straw shooting out in all directions. When Morris finds him, he's brandishing a knife slathered in jam at nothing in particular.

The first one to notice Morris is a mangy cat with only one eye. What little fur remains on his shoulders stands on end, and he hisses, "No room! There's no room!" The rest of the Partiers have soon picked up the cry, but the March Hare races over with a spindly stool tucked under his arm, shouting, "There's always room for cousins!" over the chorus.

"Oh, very _well_," the Hatter says with an irritable huff, and the Partiers go back to ignoring him.

The March Hare leads Morris to the table with a kind smile. "My name's Haigha," he says. "I haven't seen you before."

"I'm Morris."

"First time out of the scrapes?" Haigha asks, looking amused. Morris nods. "Ever had tea before?"

"No, sorry," Morris whispers.

Haigha doesn't look in the least put out. "Not to worry. This is the best place for a first. Let's see, we have gatling green and some mekath—you won't want to try those, though, not for your first time, much too powerful—hmm, and the willow pot is earl grey today, always a safe choice for a beginner, or else I think there's a bit of lemon ginger left if you'd like something a bit more refreshing. And _this_—" he intercepted a pot as it passed from one Partier to another, "—is darjeeling, which—"

The word makes colorless ripples in Morris's vision, and he's never seen anything like it before, so he blurts out, "Could I try that?"

Haigha snatches a spare cup from the table and pours. Curls of steam roll up from the liquid like an afterimage of the name itself, and when Haigha passes it to him, Morris cradles the cup as if it were made of eggshells. "It's not going to break," Haigha tells him, laughing.

He takes a tiny sip. It is too hot to taste at first, but then muted sweetness that is nothing like the cloyingness of jasmine spreads around his mouth. When he swallows, it turns into a shadow of being spicy.

"Well?" Haigha asks after a moment during which Morris has done nothing but drink in increasingly large mouthfuls.

The cup is down to dregs now, and Morris can't think of a greater tragedy. "Can I have some more?"

* * *

After the Party ends, Morris wanders back home with two crumpets stuffed into his pocket. He finds Franco whittling idly beneath a tree near the scrapes, and his friend flicks some of the wood shavings at him when he sits down. "Where've you been?" he asks. "I looked all over."

"I was at the Tea Party," Morris says. "Here, I brought you a scone."

Franco accepts it with wide eyes and nibbles on it as if he can't believe it's real. "Were you _really_?"

"Yeah, and I'm going to the the March Hare when I grow up," Morris says, with a confidence he hasn't felt in years.

"You are not," Franco says, snorting.

"Am too!" he says.

Franco says, "March Hares have to be tough, little cousin."

Morris rolls his eyes. "You're only two months older than me, Franco," he says.

"Old enough to know you can't be a March Hare if you can't even fight for yourself," Franco tells him coolly.

"I'm _going _to be the March Hare," Morris says, scowling at him. No matter what Franco says, he wants to be the one wielding the kettle and he's going to do whatever it takes to get there.


	6. Morris: Laceration

**Laceration**

Morris goes to the Tea Party as often as he can after that first day. The Partiers are more than welcoming ("Anyone who comes back is worth keeping," Haigha explains when he asks why), and at their insistence he learns to dance, reluctantly at first until he gets better at it. Most of the time he prefers to sit and watch, or else trail after Haigha and memorizing the steps that lead to tea.

On his thirteenth birthday, exactly two years and three hundred sixty-four days after his first Tea Party, Haigha sends him an invitation to arrive early so he can help set the table, and not even Cornelius's grumble of "Suck up" can spoil Morris's mood as he leaves. Franco catches up with him as he's leaving the field, looking annoyed. "You're off to the Tea Party again, then?" he asks.

"You could come," Morris says. Franco brightens considerably at this. "If you want."

"You sure?" he says.

Morris says, "It's my _birthday_. They're not going to turn any guests of mine away."

Franco raises his eyebrows. "Guests?"

"Guest," Morris corrects himself. "I did tell Cornelius and Cyrus and Frances to come if they wanted, but Frances is spending the day with the triplets and—well, you know." Franco nods. "They _might_ come," he adds, without much hope.

"Those bastards probably don't even like tea," Franco says.

"Don't call them that!"

Franco just shrugs. "Well, they _are_."

Haigha is surprised but not, Morris thinks, displeased when he shows up with an extra person. "You can help set the table," he tells Franco, "and then there'll be more time to brew the tea and _that _means we'll have more variety. We might even break into that new pomegranate black."

The dishes are all in crates stacked in cupboards that, when Morris isn't focusing on them directly, fade back into the tree. They don't talk much as they lay out the places, taking care to leave spaces for the teapots and anyone who feels like dancing, but there's an absence in their midst that Morris can't help but notice. "Where's the Hatter?" he asks.

Haigha shrugs. "He'll be here when the Party starts," he says, and no more is said on the matter.

Because it's his birthday, Morris gets to pour the water and watch as ribbons of flavor whisper out of the leaves while Franco looks on with obvious envy. The kettle is bigger and much heavier than it looks, and the heat rising from its metal surface makes it uncomfortable to hold on to even with the insulated handle. He grips all the harder, determined not to ruin anything.

When he's done, Haigha gives him an approving nod and mutters, "Keep that up and you'll go far," and Morris can't help but throw a triumphant smirk in Franco's direction. Franco just rolls his eyes.

* * *

The Partiers start to arrive several minutes later, in ones and twos and occasionally threes, and the Hatter makes his appearance not long after that, in a checkered turquoise suit that matches the sound of the cutlery. Franco makes a beeline for the gatling green, probably because Haigha gave him the same warning that Morris himself received three years ago and Franco loves to prove that he's stronger than people think.

"I see what you mean, now, I think," Franco says when he's recovered from the shock. "It's like drinking thunder."

"I'm still going to be the March Hare," Morris says sternly.

"Not if I get there first," Franco says, without rancor.

The Mock Turtle gets on the table to sing for a ponderous Lobster Quadrille, his voice low and mournful and deepest green. The dancers don't seem in the least bit bothered by the absence of lobsters with which to perform, and Morris settles deeper into his chair with his cup of oolong to enjoy the dance.

It has gone on for only a minute or two when the Nine of Clubs bursts into the clearing, panting. The Hatter hustles him into a seat and Haigha pours him some hibiscus while he struggles to get his breath back. "What's happened?"

"Somebody stormed the Palace this morning," the Nine says when he's got his breath back. "All the decks have been reshuffled and the new Queen is having her coronation in an hour. Everyone must attend, or she'll have all our heads."

This is enough for most of the Partiers, who abandon their tea and scramble for their homes so they can dress before the ceremony, but Haigha leans forward urgently. "This new Queen, who is she?"

"Her name's Cora, I think," the Nine says, looking doubtful.

"You think?" Haigha asks. "Might it be something different?"

The Nine shakes his head and drains the rest of his tea. "It might be, or it mightn't. She's a very different sort of Queen. Now I really must dash—the White Rabbit won't be able to reach all of Wonderland in time. Good day!" He shoves away from the table and sprints back into the forest.

Haigha frowns after him for a few seconds. "You two had best get home and tell the Family," he says. "I'll clean this up." Whatever thoughts are in his head, he pulls himself out of them to shoo them away.

* * *

Morris dashes back into his house and he can tell the others haven't heard yet, because they're confused to see him out of breath. "There's a new Queen," he gasps out. "Everyone has to be at the coronation in an hour."

The Family has it easier than most, since no outsider knows exactly how many Hares there are, so when Cornelius declares that he doesn't want to go and Cyrus immediately pipes up that _he _doesn't, either, there isn't much fuss. Dad sends them straight to the burrow, where outsiders aren't allowed, and warns them to stay inside until he sends someone to tell them it's safe.

Frances is already in her best dress and coiling her braids into a pretty knot on top of her head by the time Morris remembers that he ought to change, since his trousers are fraying at the hems and his jacket has been patched so many times that the original fabric is almost gone. Mom hands him a clean shirt without a word and attacks his tangled hair with a comb, and for once he doesn't protest the painful yank of the teeth.

They make it to the Heart Palace with ten minutes to spare and disperse into the general crowd. Family may stick together, but there's more safety in anonymity than in numbers when the Queen of Hearts is involved. Morris squeezes through the press of bodies until he finds a place where he can see without being seen, in the shadow of a massive, twisted marble pillar.

A regal-looking woman who could only be Cora sits on the royal throne, and she's unlike anyone Morris has ever seen. A corona of purplish light rests around her shoulders like a stole that's only half real; he can see right through it to the intricate twists of gold and brass that make up the royal throne. Looking directly at her for too long hurts his eyes, and it takes him a minute or so to realize that it's because the air itself seems to be warping around her, as if he's seeing her through bubbled glass.

A Two of Hearts steps out from the darkness behind the throne and, with a low bow, presents a scepter to the new Queen. The scepter is brass and gold just like the throne, but twisted and spiky and blossoming into delicate ruby petals at the top, a rose of metal and glass. Cora lifts her hand to take it, and a ripple of something that Morris can't put to words but which makes the hairs on the back of his neck prickle sweeps through the room.

Someone breaks. Morris doesn't know if it's because he felt the ripple too, or if the strain of the unexpected coronation was simply too much for him, but the Griffin's shriek blooms like electric blue fire through the hall. On her throne, Cora gestures minutely with the scepter and more of that strange, transparent purple light boils around the Griffin's outstretched wings, and suddenly he isn't moving anymore.

"Guards," Cora says. Her voice is like velvet, soft around the edges, but Morris suspects that if he were to try to touch it it would feel more like granite. The Five and Six of Spades rush from their posts to the immobilized Griffin and drag him out of the crowd. Another Spade who wears no markers of rank oils out from behind the throne with a bluish axe propped on his shoulder.

Around Morris, the crowd fluctuates with unease. His own stomach seems to have vanished. This isn't how things are supposed to go; the Queen is distractible and the King pardons anyone who incurs her wrath. _Everyone _knows that, and Morris hunkers closer to the pillar and waits for the Protocol to fix this. It gathers like a thunderstorm, heavy and sticky and smelling of burning flesh, but nothing else happens.

Cora surveys the Griffin with half-lidded eyes. "Off with his head," she says, sounding bored. The unmarked Spade hefts the axe over his head while the other two back away, and _still _the Protocol does nothing. Morris doesn't have time to close his eyes before the blade slams down with a horrible noise that is squelch and thunk and splatters of pink and liver-red. The golden head, stained red now, rolls to a stop.

His stomach contracts and sour bile fills his mouth, but he clamps his hands over his mouth and locks his jaw shut. This is a very different sort of Queen and he _cannot _draw attention to himself in her court, so he waits with watering eyes for his insides to stop heaving and then swallows. It burns going down even more than it did coming up.

* * *

By a combination of keeping his eyes shut and his hands firmly over his mouth, Morris manages not to be sick for the entire coronation, which lasts an hour too long. He scrambles for the door as soon as they are dismissed and makes it to the outer gate before he doubles over and everything comes out at once, chunks of the Tea Party and bile streaked with blood from the rawness in his throat. Mom arrives before he has finished and for once she has no words of comfort to offer. "Home," is all she says, and even that is strained.

Morris slips his hand into hers and she doesn't complain, even though it's sticky from vomit. His stomach is empty, but their mad dash for the safety of the scrapes still makes it roll. Nothing comes up this time.

When they are secure in the kitchen and he's had a sip or two of jasmine to sooth the pain in his throat and wash away the taste of bile, Morris whispers, "Why didn't the Protocol stop her?"

Mom hugs him the way she used to when he was younger and had nightmares bad enough to justify waking her up, so tight he can hardly breathe. "It tried, sweet," she says. "Didn't you feel it? It tried and it couldn't."

"But _why?_" There is a note of hysteria in his voice now, a speckle of mahogany where there is usually nothing but grey.

"I don't know," she says.

The door flies open and there are Frances and Dad with Cornelius and Cyrus. "Oh, thank Dodgson, you're safe," Dad says, and Mom reaches out to hold his hand. Tears are crusted over Frances's cheeks and more keep pouring from her eyes despite Cornelius's attempts to comfort her.

"What will we do?" Morris asks.

"Wait it out," Dad says. "That's the only thing to be done, if the Protocol can't rewrite her."

"But more people will die!" Morris screams, and Dad looks away.

"There's nothing we can do, Morris," Mom whispers.

It feels like missing a step in the dark, but it keeps going forever instead of ending after a few inches, and he knows that he's going to break like china when he hits the ground at last. He squirms out of Mom's grasp and bolts for the door, knowing they won't catch him because he's the fastest. Mom calls for him to come back, but he's seeing everything through a film of tears and if he stops moving he'll drown in them.

It isn't Mom who stops him but Cornelius, who leaps from the front step and sends them both crashing onto the rocky dirt path below. "Get off of me!" Morris snarls, squirming, but Cornelius is bigger and has more leverage anyway, so all that Morris accomplishes is to drive his own face harder into the ground.

"Hold _still_, idiot, you're going to get everyone in trouble!" He's never seen Cornelius's voice so angry, frayed into a rusty knot like this. Cornelius's knee digs in between Morris's shoulder blades and makes the edges of his vision go dark and small. Morris can't breathe and his head fills with heat and light and, panicking, he heaves up and around with a strength he didn't know he had.

His flailing wrist connects with something hard and suddenly Cornelius isn't pinning him down anymore. As he sucks in more air, his vision clears and he sees his brother a few inches away, rubbing his jaw and looking scornful. Morris looks down at his own arm, surprised; he's never hit anyone before.

It surprises him, how good it feels.

"Leave me alone," he spits, getting up to run, but Cornelius lunges for him again. This time, Morris is ready for him, and there is a brittle crunch the color of burnt toast when his fist connects with Cornelius's nose. Even the pain that explodes through his own hand is worth the look on his brother's face when he reels back, howling and clutching his face.

Morris runs.

* * *

He pounds on the March Hare's door until it opens and he falls inwards with a sob. "It's not fair!" he shouts, even though the words scrape out of his throat like acid, "It's not fair and I hate the Queen and I hate the Protocol and—"

Haigha half-drags him to an armchair and puts a kettle on to boil. "I know," he says over and over again. He drapes a blanket over Morris's shoulders, and even though he isn't cold, the weight is comforting. "But raging about it isn't going to help."

"I know," Morris echoes bitterly. "'There's _nothing we can do_.'"

"We can make tea," Haigha says.

"What good will that do?"

The kettle whistles and Haigha is silent while he pours, not bothering with pots this time but straight into two lumpy mugs that are nothing like the graceful cups of the Tea Party. "You'd be surprised what tea can accomplish."

"It's just a drink," Morris says, but he takes the tea when Haigha offers it to him. It smells vaguely of apples. "It can't change anything."

"What it changes is in here," Haigha says, tapping Morris lightly on the forehead. "Tea is the oil that keeps our brains in order. Keeps our pipes from clogging up with all the filth that's in the world. Damps down our fires before we can self-immolate." He drinks deeply from his own cup and nods. "Tea, my boy, is a state of mind."

Morris drinks, and the taste of fresh hay and whispers of baked apple drive away the lingering bitterness in his mouth.

"It isn't fair," he says again.

"No," Haigha says heavily. "It isn't. But that doesn't mean we don't fight, in our own small way." He begins to pace in jagged lines, pausing mid-step every few feet to drink his tea. "The Protocol cannot touch the Queen for reasons unknown, but it can mitigate the damage she does elsewhere. There is, for example, already a new Griffin, although he's little more than a cub."

"But the old one is still dead," Morris reminds him.

Haigha goes completely still for three seconds. "People die," he says.

"Then what can we _do_?" Morris asks, squeezing his mug so hard that his fingers ache.

"Keep our heads down. Hide those who need it. Find a way to depose the Queen and replace her with someone safer, without being killed ourselves in the process." He frowns. "Failing that, find and destroy whatever is protecting her from the Protocol."

"How?"

"I don't know yet," Haigha says. "We may not know for a very long time. Until then…" He plucks a piece of straw from his hair and hands it to Morris, who takes it, confused. "There is a certain safety in madness. Go on."

Morris tucks the straw behind his ear. "Thank you."

"Run home now, my boy," Haigha says. "Your family will be worried."


	7. Morris: Counterparts

**Counterparts**

Two long years have passed, and the Family still doesn't know how Cora has evaded the Protocol. There are days when they think it's gotten through at last, and on those days no one dies, but inevitably Cora fights it off and the slaughter picks up again. Even the short-lived King of Hearts didn't survive for more than a few months, although if the rumors are true, the King did live long enough to father an heir.

His name will be Jack, of course, as it always is.

Morris first hears the news from Frances, who has been spending more and more time on Cora's croquet fields of late. He asks her how she can brave the Queen's presence, and she reaches over to flick one of the dreadlocks which he's been growing recently, rolling her eyes. "No one but the Hearts have seen the Queen in months," she tells him. "They say it's because she's having a child, and that's why she took the King's head."

He barely has time to worry Cora's latest psychosis, since his work at the Tea Party keeps him busy most days. It's no secret anymore that Morris is favored for succession, once Haigha's failing health reaches a terminal point, although it usually comes as a surprise to people that Franco is just as likely to earn the position. "A jackrabbit, the March Hare?" Morris has heard the question so many times that he doesn't bother answering anymore, just summons up his most scathing glare until the skeptic goes away again.

Franco is more sensitive about the matter, and the regular Partiers have learnt not to bring it up if they don't want a tea cup thrown at their heads with unerring aim. "Anyone who thinks you're not good enough 'cause of what subspecies you are isn't worth your time," Morris tells him one day after a particularly nasty incident with the Dormouse, who had raised his head groggily in the middle of the Party to deliver a few slurred insults with regards to Franco's mother.

"That's easy for you to say," Franco hisses, scrubbing a saucer so hard that it shatters. Franco flings the pieces away and wraps a spare dishcloth around his bleeding hand before picking up a cup and beginning to wash it with equal viciousness. "You're the right kind of hare."

"It doesn't matter," Morris says. "Haigha thinks you've got just as much chance as I have. And if you get it you'll do a great job."

Franco bares his teeth angrily, but says nothing more while they finish the dishes and sort them into their crates. Not until they're stacking the crates into the cupboards that are only half there does Morris dare to break the silence. "The Mock Turtle's hosting a dance to celebrate the Griffin's birthday in a few days," he says. "It might take your mind off things."

"I don't dance," he grumbles. It's true; Franco has steadfastly refused to learn despite the Partiers' and Morris's best attempts to persuade him otherwise.

"Still," Morris says. "There'll be good food and the Mock Turtle's going to make some kind of speech. Cornelius is going to try to set up a knife-throwing game." Recently Cornelius joined Dad's ferret hunting program, and since then he's spoken of nothing but knives and caffeine. "It'd do you both good if you beat him."

Franco says, "I'll think about it," which is as close as he'll ever get to accepting the invitation.

* * *

The Mock Turtle's beach is a little crescent of bone-white sand, with a dozen or so large black rocks lodged here and there along the surf line. A stand of beech trees marks the edge of the sand, and in the opposite direction there is the water, which is usually grey-green and frothy. Morris has only been here a few times, although the Mock Turtle's somber events are always well spoken of by the Partiers. When he arrives with Franco, the Mock Turtle is watching with misty eyes while a quartet of seagulls drag pieces of driftwood into a pile sheltered by one of the biggest rocks.

As they approach, the Mock Turtle lashes his tail and sighs heavily. "That will have to do," he says, and the seagulls flap off, squawking, to perch in the beech trees. "And who are you?" the Mock Turtle asks, catching sight of Morris and Franco. "Have you come to hear my speech?"

"We have," Morris says, and the Mock Turtle draws his flipper across his eyes with another mournful sigh.

"You're from the Tea Party," he says after a moment. "I recognize you now."

"Yes, sir," Morris says.

The Mock Turtle begins, "If you want to make yourselves useful—"

"—we do—" Franco says.

"—then you may clear the jellyfish out of the way for the Lobster Quadrille," he finishes, waving despondently toward an open stretch of sand where, Morris supposes, the dance will take place. There are indeed jellyfish strewn across it, like dollops of jam left by the last tide.

He and Franco pick their way over the sand, pinching up the dead jellyfish and tossing them into a large bucket which the seagulls produce from behind one of the beeches. By the time they finish, more guests have arrived. Frances is there with Sadie, Cherice, and Jocelyn, as well as a few other Hares that Morris recognizes but has never spoken to. The Griffin himself, almost full grown now, appears along with the Dodo, who looks even rounder than usual next to his more angular companion. The frog who often plays his music at the Tea Party drags in his assortment of peculiar instruments to consult with the Mock Turtle, looking not in the least concerned when he starts to weep at the sight of a flute made of blown glass.

The Mock Turtle reaches an agreement with the frog and clambers to the top of a rock at the edge of the dance space. He makes no attempt to claim their attention before he begins to sing gloomily. By "_he's treading on my tail_," most of the chatter has stopped, and the Lobster Quadrille begins not half a line later, accompanied by the smooth, green glass of the Mock Turtle's voice and the smaller droplets from the frog's musical saw.

A salamander marches into the pile of driftwood that the seagulls provided and, moments later, ethereal lavender flames erupt from the top of the stack. "Are you sure you won't dance?" Morris asks.

"Piss off," Franco says.

"Your loss," Morris says, and goes to join the dancers.

The Lobster Quadrille isn't his favorite unless it's sped up like they do at the Tea Party, but he enjoys himself all the same. Even the late arrival of a rowdy crew of sailors led by a scrawny captain whose handbell clashes terribly with the music doesn't bother him too much. Cornelius does show up a few minutes later with Cyrus in tow, and when he draws a target on one of the beech trees with a bit of chalk and starts throwing knives, the sailors are distracted enough that the handbell is no longer a problem.

* * *

When the dance ends and Franco is nowhere to be found, Morris assumes he's joined the throwing game at the beech trees. He ventures over to where a pudgy walrus is grilling oysters to steal a few before they all disappear. An iguana named Pike whom Morris knows from the Tea Party wanders over while he's eating. "Did you know," the iguana says, "there's a rumor going around the court that we're going to have an Alice in a few years?"

"Really?" Morris asks. The Family is usually the first to hear about these sorts of things, not the court.

"Oh yes," Pike says. "The Caterpillar predicted it, it seems."

"I hadn't heard," Morris says.

"Well, now you have." Pike starts to shamble away again. "So there's no excuse for not knowing."

Pike's tail has barely flicked out of sight around a rock when Franco stomps up to Morris, looking disgruntled. He points an accusing finger. "You sister," he snarls, "just _kissed _me."

Morris stares at him blankly for a moment. "What?" he tries to say, but it turns into helpless laughter halfway through.

"Don't laugh at me!" Franco shouts, reaching like he's going to try to throttle him.

"Sorry," Morris says, although his shoulders are still shaking with suppressed mirth. Franco drops his hands and scowls even harder. "But really, how did you like it?" It's so rare that he gets to tease his cousin for something this excellent and he's not about to waste the opportunity.

"You know damn well I have no interest in that sort of thing," Franco says, his voice flat and hard like ice.

Morris smirks. "If you've been leading my baby sister on, I'm going to have to poison your tea," he says.

"Shut up."

"If it's any comfort at all, she probably did it on a dare," Morris says. "I doubt very much she's in love with you." He draws out the word _love_ and feels no small amount of satisfaction when Franco bares his teeth.

"Love's stupid," he snaps. "All it does is make people stupid and then unhappy."

"I did say she's _not_." Morris waits until Franco's shoulders have relaxed again, and then adds, "Although Frances and Franco has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"Oh, piss off," Franco says. Morris grins.

"I—" he begins, but a shout from the direction of the beech trees cuts him off.

He rises on tip-toe and cranes his neck to see who it is, and then the White Rabbit bursts out from between two trees and skids to a stop on the sand. There is a scroll clenched tightly in his hand, and he shakes it out to read. "Her Royal Pain, the Queen of Hearts, is pleased to announce the birth of her son, Jack of Hearts, on this day at the hour of twenty-six minutes past ten. There is to be a christening ceremony tomorrow at twelve o'clock, attendance of which is mandatory." The White Rabbit releases the bottom of the scroll, and it rolls back up on its own. "That is all," he says. "Do carry on."

The White Rabbit bounds away, and most of the guests go right back to what they were doing. Morris exchanges a dark glance with Franco, and without a word they go to meet the other Family members in attendance. Frances joins them on their way up the beach, flanked by the triplets, who keep eyeing Franco warily. Seconds later, Cornelius is there, too, but Cyrus is no where in sight. "Cyrus?" Frances asks, frowning.

"He went off with the Bellman's crew a while ago," Cornelius says.

They wait at the top of the beach while the rest of the Hares gather and then, as one, they begin the long walk back to the burrow. Morris keeps quiet, preferring to listen to the speculation of the older Hares as to whether Jack will be equally untouched by the Protocol and if so, would it be wise to remove him from Cora to ensure that he doesn't grow up to be omnicidal?

* * *

Morris bids good-night to Franco and he, Frances, and Cornelius are halfway home when Mom and Dad intercept them, both of their faces pinched with worry. "There's been a Family meeting called," Mom says, reaching out to rearrange Morris's dreadlocks. "Some disturbance at the Heart Palace."

"The Queen had her baby," Frances says.

"Something bigger than that," Mom says.

They go into the burrow as a family, holding on to each other to keep from being separated in the crush of other Hares all heading for the biggest chamber in the burrow after the one that houses the Protocol's heart. The crashing waves of nervous chatter hurts Morris's eyes with the patchwork of color, but no one seems to know why they are gathering.

The meeting chamber is less crowded than the tunnels, and his family manages to work their way toward the center of the room, where the Family elders will be gathered. Morris isn't sure what to expect; perhaps the White Rabbit with news more dire than a birth.

He isn't expecting Cora in what appears to be a dressing gown and cradling a bundle that, judging by the tiny, blotchy red arm poking out from under the soft blankets, is the newborn Jack. The rest of the crowd stirs with equal confusion, but the more Morris looks the less certain he is that it's really her. There is no halo of unsettling purple light, and she doesn't warp the air around her like Cora did at the coronation.

"Who is she?" he whispers to Mom, but she looks as lost as he is.

The eldest Hare claps, and the noise is louder than it should be over the sound of the crowd. It cuts down the rustle of confusion like the blade of an axe. The assembly goes so quiet that Morris can pick out individual breaths from those around him, and the sienna crackle when the woman who looks like Cora but isn't shifts from foot to foot. The eldest Hare looks at her and says, "Tell them what you told me."

"Cora came to Wonderland from another world," the woman says. "A place called the Enchanted Realm. She fell into an active looking glass by accident. The Protocol saw that she was a threat and tried to rewrite her, unsuccessfully. It made me instead." A susurrus of surprise whips through the chamber. "For a long time we were both in her body, and she kept me back with her magic, which I couldn't access. Tonight I lost my last hold in her mind and when I woke up, I had a body of my own. It didn't take her long to realize what had happened, and she came after me. I can still feel, a little, when she's close." She closes her eyes.

"In the Enchanted Realm, Cora had a daughter, Regina. I've seen her memories of how the girl was raised. I couldn't inflict that on Jack, so I grabbed him and ran, and I came here because I knew you could protect me. Cora escaped the Protocol by sheer luck, and she knows it."

"How?" someone shouts from behind Morris.

"Her heart isn't in her body," the woman who isn't quite Cora says. Another murmur, louder this time, spread away from her in ripples. "It's in a box in the Enchanted Realm, locked away in her secretest of vaults. Without it, the Protocol couldn't get a strong enough grip to change her, and it could do nothing but make a copy." Her lips pull into a smile that stays miles away from her eyes. "Me."

"I think it's clear," the eldest Hare says, when the talk has died down again, "that we have a responsibility to the Protocol to protect—" he breaks off suddenly, looking at the woman. "Do you have a name?"

"I don't know," the woman says. "Her name is Cora but it doesn't feel as if it belongs to me. It sounds hollow and I'm not as empty as she is. Perhaps…" She trails off, thinking. "Her mother's name was Edwina," she says at last. "That and that she died in childbirth is all Cora knows of her. It's a name I could tailor to myself, I think."

"Edwina it is," the eldest Hare says. "And I am certain I speak for us all when I say that you have our support." Assent races through the crowd just like surprise did a moment ago. "Our first task is to get you out of Wonderland. Cora's influence does not stretch very far past the Looking Glass. In Looking Glass Land, you would be safe. I believe the Tea Party can assist with this?"

Haigha's voice rings out from the opposite side of the chamber. "Yes. There is a very valuable shipment of elphid green being delivered to our associates in the Glassland next week. One of my apprentices will be fetching it in person; we can smuggle Edwina through in the Tea Party scarab easily enough. It's never searched by the border patrols."

* * *

On the day of the delivery, Haigha hands him an axe. "What's this for?" Morris asks. Dad has given him lessons with all sorts of weapons before, reasoning that everyone ought to know how to defend themselves, but blades of any kind always feel awkward in his hands.

Haigha says, "Just in case."

Morris has very clear instructions for the operation of the scarab, and the controls themselves are fairly intuitive, but he can't help the nerves that crawl through his intestines as he prepares to take to the air by himself for the first time. Not quite alone, he reminds himself; he has fugitives to smuggle, too. The Hares in Looking Glass Land have been notified of the situation and will be waiting when he arrives.

Edwina and Jack will be hidden away in the Looking Glass House by Mad Thackery, the resident Hare, long before the workers for the Glassland Tea Company and the chessmen they hired to guard the shipments arrive to load the scarab. The fugitives are already on the scarab when he boards, having been snuck aboard under cover of darkness the night before. Jack is asleep, barely visible in a cocoon of blankets; Edwina is dressed in Family cast-offs and looks grim.

"If I were Cora and looking for myself," she says, "I'd start by searching the vehicle that never gets searched."

"The Protocol's on your side," Morris reminds her, his mouth dry. "We won't be searched."

"Which is why you have an axe," she says, and Morris tightens his grip on the weapon.

"Better safe," he says.

The whine of the engine wakes Jack, and his eye-searingly bright yellow cries do nothing to settle Morris's nerves. It doesn't last long, fortunately; Edwina coos at him and rocks until the baby is asleep again. "What will you do once you're there?" Morris asks after a while, to break the uncomfortable silence.

"I don't know," she says. "I've never been anything but a Queen."

"There are two of those in Looking Glass Land," Morris says.

"I've heard."

She says nothing more, and Morris ventures to add, "Promotion works by proximity there."

"Queens don't make very good mothers," Edwina says.

* * *

The Looking Glass is notoriously hard to find at the best of times, but today it takes several hours of circling low over the edges of Wonderland before it makes an appearance. Morris has never seen it before, only heard descriptions, but what he's been told does nothing to prepare him for the real thing. It's massive, easily four times the size of the scarab, and it isn't just a giant mirror like he expected.

Oh, it reflects, certainly, but not just Wonderland. He can see the burnished brass triangles of the scarab's engine, and blue-green creaking metal and even the dark, smoky hum that comes from the Looking Glass itself. There are iridescent fractures running over the surface and it takes him a second to realize that they aren't cracks at all, but the Protocol made visible.

Mirrors can reveal pieces of the truth, but never all of it; the Looking Glass is the realest mirror in existence, so Morris supposes it makes sense that it would show the biggest truth of them all.

As they approach, the Protocol begins to swirl. The scarab's radar clicks and Morris stretches his neck to see a smaller, more mobile glider with a spade embossed on the side flying into view. He feels the air thickening and the crackle of power as the Protocol gathers, and then a rush of cold air as it streaks out toward the court vehicle.

The glider turns away, and beside him Edwina lets out a shuddery sigh.

Ahead of them, the Looking Glass hums.

* * *

The Looking Glass House looks… wrong. Morris can tell even from the height of the scarab that nothing inside leads where it should. It's no wonder that Mad Thackery is renowned for his oddness.

Morris lands the scarab in the gardens, which waste no time in lobbing insults: "Eurgh, look at that weed! What is she, a thistle?" "_That _one needs a good watering! Look at those withered petals, poor thing." "Poor thing? I don't feel sorry for _anyone _who won't take care of themselves."

Mad Thackery is there, too, listing badly to the left and dressed in a ratty blue jacket that's much too big for him. His ears keep jerking like they're being electrocuted. "This way, this way," he says to Edwina, hurrying her away from the House but nevertheless getting closer to it with every step. The paradox makes Morris's eyes water. "No time to lose. The chessmen will be here any minute. No trouble, I hope?"

"You don't seem very insane," Morris says. Mad Thackery beams at him.

"The House," he says gleefully, "drove me so deeply into madness that I have, in some ways, come out the other side. It drove me sane, in fact." They've walked far enough to be at the garden gates, which means they're really at the front door now. "Of course, sanity is a serious disadvantage to anyone living in Wonderland, so I endeavored to go mad again."

Edwina doesn't look convinced, and Morris isn't either, but Mad Thackery is Family so he can be trusted. Morris doesn't follow them into the House, because the chessmen are indeed arriving with huge boxes that he knows are full of tea. He clamps down on the part of him that insists he walk toward them and walks away instead, taking comfort from the fact that the chessmen seem equally puzzled by the skewed orientations.

He signs the packing slip that the sticklike delivery agent thrusts at him and watches while the bulkier chessmen manhandle the boxes into the belly of the scarab. They don't ask him to help, and he enjoys the opportunity to be the one overseeing things.

When he's the March Hare, it'll be like this all the time.

* * *

Franco is waiting to help unload the scarab when he gets back. "How did it go?" he asks, quick and low.

"The Protocol took care of it," Morris says. He wonders, now that the danger is over, whether the Spade in that glider remembers that something was taken, whether his eyes seem empty to those who know him. "I think they'll be okay."

"You hope," Franco says.

"Yeah."

It takes longer for them to unload the tea than it did for the chessmen to pack it; the boxes are too large to be practical to hold and very heavy to boot. Despite the usual midnight chill, it's hot, sweaty work. "What's Looking Glass Land like?" Franco pants when the last box has been stowed safely in the March Hare's basement.

"I didn't see anything outside of the House. The flowers are even ruder there, though, and the Looking Glass twists space like you wouldn't believe."

Franco doesn't respond for a moment, and then, "You're going to be the March Hare, you know."

"You don't know that."

"I do," Franco says flatly. "You get all the important jobs. All I ever get asked to do is the dishes. It's obvious you're Haigha's first choice."

"No," Morris says. "It's going to be fair. We can, we can flip a coin or play poker for it or—"

"—or race," Franco says. Morris stares at him; Franco _knows _that Morris is faster. "Whoever gets to the table first wins. That makes more sense than _cards_."

"But…"

"We'll race for it," Franco says. "Promise."

"I promise," Morris whispers.


	8. Morris: March Hare

**March Hare**

The Hatter's latest apprentice is a stranded portal-jumper who's half mad even without mercury, and it's he who delivers the news. "I'm looking for Morris," he says when Frances answers the door. "The old March Hare is dead and he's the first one on the list." He sounds bored, and Morris tries to mirror his tone even though it feels like he's been punched in the gut.

"What about the second?" he asks. "Has he been informed?"

The ex-portal-jumper gives him a cold look. "If you don't want the job—"

"I do, I do," Morris says quickly, "But we promised we would race for it."

"That's not how it works. Take it now, or it goes to him."

Morris can already feel the kettle in his hand, the feel of china beneath his fingers and the swirl of the Party and the house that will belong to him if he says yes. There will be no need to leave the table because he'll be _right there _all the time, and away from Cornelius with his dark glares and Cyrus's grating silence and—

But he _promised_.

"Tick tock," the ex-portal-jumper snaps.

"I'll take it," Morris says. His voice sounds hollow.

Franco will understand.

* * *

Morris races himself to the table, but it isn't the same. Even though the Party hasn't started yet, the Hatter is at the table, staring at nothing. "Hatter?" Morris says. The Hatter ignores him, instead snatching up his watch and shaking it violently, muttering under his breath about it being the wrong day. He reaches across the empty table like he's grabbing for something. Jam and a knife, probably.

"Hatter," Morris says, louder. "Can you hear me?"

The Hatter peers up at him, his neck at a weird angle. "The table needs to be set," he says after a moment.

"Of course," Morris says, going for the cabinets.

He's just opened them when the Hatter says, "You were going to stay. You were going to wait for Alice."

"Alice isn't here," Morris says.

"The hay fever," the Hatter whimpers. "You left. Throat—It's yours!" he shouts. "I distinctly remember it! This custard is curdled!" He flings the watch across the table; it hits the chair opposite and gears explode out of it in a shower of ice-blue plinks and earth-brown clatters.

"Hatter…"

"Bring me my cards! I've a match to play with Time!" The Hatter shakes his arms furiously over the table, and a few crumpled and grimy cards fall out. "Never four o'clock again, do you hear me, you bastard?!" he screams, leaping onto his chair and then onto the table, which he sprints down, brandishing his fists.

"Hatter, please!"

"NINE DAYS WRONG! I'LL HAVE YOU THIS TIME!"

Morris fills his lungs and bellows, "HATTER!"

The sudden quiet is deafening. In the stillness, Morris can feel the Protocol settling around his throat like a collar. For a moment his head spins and he struggles for oxygen, and then it passes and everything is normal again.

"You," the Hatter whispers. He gets off the table in one giant step that nearly sends him tumbling onto his face, but he recovers at the last minute to jab a shaking finger into Morris's nose. "You're not." His whole face is milk-white save for two patches of deepest crimson on his cheekbones, and his eyes are so dilated that Morris can see nothing but black. Morris backs away, but the Hatter follows, hissing wordlessly. "You _lied _to me," he says, deathly quiet now, and lunges for Morris's neck with an incoherent screech.

Morris ducks out of the way and spins to watch the Hatter sail past and then land in the grass. He's up again immediately, spitting chunks of sod, and he staggers toward Morris again.

He doesn't get more than a step before the Protocol flows out of the ground in twists of silver, and Morris can't help but notice the similarity of the strands to mercury. "No," he tries to say, but the air itself congeals and he can't move as the Protocol forces its way down the Hatter's throat. Strangled screams paint the sky the color of bone, and the Hatter flops like a drowning man.

"No," Morris whispers again when it's over, but he knows it'll do no good. The Protocol fades away again until the next time it's needed, and he drops to his knees by the Hatter. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he says, like a mantra that will make everything okay again if he repeats it enough. If he wishes hard enough.

The Hatter opens vague, unfocused eyes and beams. "Sorry," he says, "Did I doze off? I was just saying that the table needs setting."

* * *

As soon as his first Tea Party as the March Hare is over, he goes to Franco's house. It takes too long for Franco to answer his knock, and then Morris realizes that it's because he's just not going to answer.

He opens the door anyway and goes in. Franco sits in the living room just off the entryway, but he doesn't move at the sound of the door.

"So you're the March Hare now." Franco's voice is curiously flat, steel bars instead of its usual corkscrew.

Morris shuffles his toes through the dirt floor. "Yeah," he says. "Guess so." Franco doesn't look up from the piece of blue yarn he's winding between his fingers. "You're not upset, are you? You promised you wouldn't be if I—"

"You went early!" Franco snaps. "We were going to race!" Now he does stand up; Morris doesn't appreciate the reminder that his friend is half a head taller. "It was going to be _fair_."

"Haigha _died_!" Morris shouts. "What was I supposed to do? There was no time!"

"There's always time for _us_." Franco glares at him for a few seconds more before turning abruptly away again. "Just… go away. You made your choice; enjoy your Tea Party."

Morris does what he's told.

* * *

He wanders through the forest. It's getting to be the time for boojums, which means he ought to go home, but he thinks of the empty house that used to be Haigha's and now belongs to him and steers himself in the opposite direction. He knows the furniture there as well as his own—it _is _his own, now—and he knows, too, that he can't face it right now.

So he goes to the Pool of Tears. It hasn't changed since he saw it last, seven (could it really be _seven_?) years ago. He climbs the scree and sits on the lee side of the tower. The rocks are freezing and the building is even colder, and they leech the heat out of his body like blood pouring out of a severed artery.

"You too, cousin?" comes a voice that Morris recognizes as that of the White Rabbit. He squints through the darkness; instead of his usual waistcoat, the White Rabbit is hunched in a huge wool trench coat, brown with stripes that veer back and forth like the path of a hare fleeing from danger.

"Me too, what?" Morris asks.

"Drowning one's sorrows at the Pool of Tears is such a tired old thing to do," the White Rabbit says. Rocks clatter when he climbs to sit beside Morris, who's shivering by the time he arrives.

"What are your sorrows, then?"

"Alice," the White Rabbit says glumly, "was supposed to come today. It was on my to-do list and everything. The Rabbit Hole was primed and ready for her to fall in, but she didn't and didn't and then, this afternoon, a bit of dirt came down and it went into flux again. She's not coming."

"You're joking."

"Working for the Queen doesn't exactly instill one with a sense of humor," the White Rabbit says.

"The Rabbit Hole can't just skip an Alice," Morris says.

"No." The White Rabbit sighs, a deep, grey pool spreading between them. "It'll just keep opening for her until she falls in, I suppose. What we _need _is someone with answers."

Morris can't help his sneer. "The Protocol's fallen down on that front a lot lately, hasn't it?"

"I was thinking of the Caterpillar," the White Rabbit says. "They say he's very wise."

"He also lives in the Valley of Mushrooms, in case you've forgotten. On _Rilchiam_. If you want to get vanished by the boojum hordes or torn apart by a jubjub bird, be my guest, but leave me out of it."

The White Rabbit shudders violently. "Oh, no," he says. "I wouldn't set foot on that death trap of an island if the Queen herself held an axe over my head. But there is someone who can fetch him for us."

"Who?"

"The Cheshire Cat," the White Rabbit says with obvious satisfaction. "Or _El Gato_, as he told the Queen when he interrupted her croquet game yesterday. Everyone knows he and the Caterpillar get along like a house fire."

Morris curls his lips even further. "You're going to trust a _cat _with something this important?" he asked. "A cat, moreover, who's well-known for not taking things seriously, and his general uselessness in anything that doesn't involve his own fickle sense of fun?"

"Better than stumbling around blind," the White Rabbit says. He gets to his feet. "Come on. It's too cold to stay out here much longer." Morris can't argue that; his teeth are beginning to chatter. "You take this," the White Rabbit says, shrugging off his coat and forcing it into Morris's hands. "You'll freeze to death if you try to walk home like that. And it clashes with my waistcoat anyway."

Morris would protest ordinarily, but right now he's too cold and the inside of the coat is still warm from the White Rabbit's body heat. He shrugs it on and pulls the extra fabric tight. "Don't fret about El Gato. He's more capable than his reputation give him credit for."

The White Rabbit is gone in a flash of fur that almost glows in the moonlight. Morris walks home with dragging feet, listening to the trees creaking in the wind and wondering if there are boojums swaying the treetops, too.

* * *

It takes only one trip to move his belongings to Haigha's—to _his _house the next morning. He still wears the White Rabbit's coat, since it didn't seem like he wanted it back and Morris likes it better than the more traditional tweed even if it is too big. Besides, it looks like nothing Haigha ever wore and anything to avoid a repeat of what happened yesterday.

The next Tea Party is in less than an hour, but Morris dawdles, sweeping out the last of the straw Haigha left behind and rearranging his own pens and paints and stacks of paper. He doesn't want to work with a Hatter who only tolerates him because of the Protocol.

He knows what will happen to him if he tries to skip the Party, though, and the thought of being rewritten himself makes his skin crawl, so he squares his shoulders and goes to set the table. Morris has nearly finished when the Hatter staggers into view, rolling from side to side with each step. "You're late!"

"No, I'm not," Morris says quietly.

The Hatter pulls the Dormouse out of one of his many pockets—his suit today seems to be composed of little else—and throws him at Morris, hard. Morris scrambles to catch him and the Hatter sniffs and says, "It's your turn to deal with him today."

"Right." Morris drops the Dormouse into his usual teapot and closes the lid so he can sleep better.

"I want you to know," the Hatter says, taking his seat and watching through half-lidded eyes while Morris starts to brew the tea, "that even though they're calling you the March Hare now, you'll never be the _real _one." Morris grits his teeth and says nothing. He'd almost prefer for the Hatter to try to throttle him again. "You ascended the day Alice was supposed to come, and you're such a bad March Hare that she decided she didn't want to." The Hatter's giggle is broken gears grinding together, with the mint edge of hysteria. "This is all your fault, you see."

"Shut up," Morris snarls.

"Haigha was a better March Hare than you'll ever be," the Hatter says, unfazed. "Just as long as you understand that."

The kettle's whistle saves Morris from having to answer.

* * *

It happens halfway through the Tea Party, and begins with billows of hazy blue smoke which rise up from the ground beneath one of the empty chairs. Morris catches a glimpse of tabby fur before the Cheshire Cat vanishes again, leaving behind the other newcomer, his head still obscured by clouds of smoke but while his legs rearrange themselves on the chair and reach for the nearest teapot.

Morris heads straight for him, and the other Partiers shift out of the way to make room. "Caterpillar?" he says. There isn't much need for confirmation, but it seems polite to ask anyway.

"And who are _you_?" the Caterpillar asks in an indigo monotone.

"I'm the March Hare," Morris says.

Some of the smoke clears around the Caterpillar's face, enough for Morris to see his patronizing stare. "What you do," the Caterpillar says, his voice more barbed than before, "is not the same as who you are." More smoke issues from his mouth, hiding his face again.

"Morris, then. Look, about Alice—"

The Caterpillar waves one of his many legs and, disturbingly, it giggles the color of strawberries. "I asked who _you _are," he says, "not what your name is."

"_Alice_," Morris says more firmly, "who was supposed to be here yesterday. All that fell down the Rabbit Hole was a handful of dirt."

"Well," the Caterpillar says, and then no more until after he's drained his cup and held it out for Morris to refill. "Whatever comes down must also go up."

"I don't care about the dirt," Morris snaps. "I want to know about Alice."

The Caterpillar sighs and settles back in his chair. "She's already here," he says.

Morris grinds his teeth together until the urge to reach into the billowing smoke to throttle the Caterpillar subsides to manageable levels. "No, she isn't. She never was."

"She always is," the Caterpillar counters mildly. "It is not that she never was but that she never left."

"Of course she never left, because there's nothing for her to leave _from_. You can't leave a place you've never been!" Other Partiers are starting to watch the exchange, looking from Morris to the Caterpillar with every sign of being greatly entertained. He's glad they're happy, at least.

"You don't," says the Caterpillar. "listen very well." At this, Morris snarls wordlessly, to which the Caterpillar's only response is a placid, "Keep your temper."

"Answer the question!"

"You haven't answered mine. Who are you?"

"Myself," Morris says through gritted teeth.

"Perception is a funny thing," the Caterpillar says, and smoke blossoms from the direction of his mouth until none of him is visible. He's gone by the time it clears.

* * *

When he walks to the scrapes after striking the Tea Party, it feels like returning for the first time in years instead of a little more than a day. He knocks on the door of his childhood home instead of walking in without a thought, and waits on the doorstep for it to open.

Mom's face lights up when she sees that it's him. "Morris, sweet, what a lovely surprise," she says, pulling him into the house amid flurries of magenta. "How is the Tea Party?"

Her face is aglow with pride, and then Morris thinks of all the lessons he received that from her that his siblings didn't, of all the time she devoted to making him competent enough to get where he is today, and he can't meet her eyes any more. "It was fine," he says.

She says, "Morris, sweetheart, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" he repeats, incredulous. "_What's wrong_? Alice isn't coming and we have no idea _why_!" His voice rises too high and he struggles to get it under control. "And there's no precedent for this, so there's not even anything we can do because we don't know how to fix it. Guillotines were bad enough, but this…"

"The Protocol is still stable," Mom whispers.

"Small comfort," Morris mutters, but he knows he's being unfair. Life with a damaged or dying Protocol would be even worse than life with the Protocol now; at least now they only had one Cora to worry about.

He leaves Mom behind and goes home, where he makes himself a cup of chamomile that he can barely finish because the smell brings to mind too many painful memories.


	9. Glassland: Prologue, 1872

**Part Two: Glassland**

**Prologue, 1872**

Consciousness wakes from a colorless mist, and grows from there by rank.

Here is the Red Queen saying that she has known far better, and here is She, alive and unbeatable.

Here is the Queen's Railway maneuvering pawns, and here are Her wings to give chase.

Here are the Tweedles reflecting each other, and here are Her great rolling eyes to see.

Here is the White Queen pricking her thumb, and here are Her jaws to bite and claws to catch.

Here is the Sheep overseeing her empty shop, and here are Her scales to keep out the nothing.

Here is Humpty Dumpty falling from his wall, and here is Her tongue to lap up the yolk.

Here are the messengers coming and going, and here are Her antennae to listen.

Here are the knights fighting with clubs, and here is Her heart to circulate blood.

Here is the pawn taking the throne, and here is Her stomach to never be filled.

Here is Alice fading away, and here is She, unable to die.


	10. Glassland: Waking

**Waking**

There is tingling. It begins in the fingers, then creeps upward, past elbows and the thin curve of shoulders, until both arms teeter on the knife's edge of numbness and feeling. Some minutes later it grows sharper and travels down the spine in the same relentless manner.

Cold follows after it. The tingling works over the skin, but the cold pries itself out from within the bones and makes the surrounding muscles spasm.

The sensations coalesce abruptly into a bright, painful point that illuminates the mind that the pieces belong too.

She opens her eyes.

_Ditch_, she thinks hazily, after she becomes aware of the water lapping against her sides and the damp press of clothes against her skin. The water feels warm; the clothes do not. A large, damp snowflake drifts to the ground a few inches from her nose, and she falls into the spiky outline of the crystals for a while.

Her eyes start to slide closed again, but a tongue of flame sears through her lungs out of nowhere. She twists to get away, screaming, but succeeds only in rolling deeper into the ditch. The water dampens the fire tearing at her insides, and the charred sludge left behind hardens into something poisonous and sharp in the region of her heart.

She kicks, and knows it works because water splashes and the force of it propels her an inch or so out of the water. A frozen clump of hair slides past her ear and over her cheek before bouncing to a halt in front of her eye, where it dangles with what she's sure is contempt. She snarls at it and lunges, scrabbling at the grass with numb fingers.

The movement drives away more of the cold, and the warmer she gets the more she hurts, which doesn't seem _fair _and only adds to the collection of blades in her chest. The pain gives her enough clarity to recognize it as anger—rage, even, a fuel good enough to beat the ditch and the snow on the grass and the way her muscles scream like rusty hinges as she drags herself up the shallow incline and away from the place that was almost her grave.

She reaches the highest point of the bank and, with a final heave, pitches herself over. Her chin jars against something hard and rough that must be a rock, and then she rolls to a stop in sudden, excruciating heat. The grass isn't grass anymore, but sand hot enough to burn all the parts of her that are touching it, and all the clouds clear away in an instant so that the sunlight nearly blinds her.

The energy that drove her out of the ditch all drains away in the heat, and she lies like a puddle while her limbs thaw out.

* * *

Later, after her clothes dry and her legs feel strong enough to support her, she crawls back to examine the place where she awoke. It is not as big as her memory insists that it is. The bank is no more than a foot or two high, and the water cannot be more than a few feet deep. There is no sign of the dead grass or the snow that she remembers, but when she puts her hand in the water to see, it's ice-cold.

She rocks back on her heels to consider the matter. She is certain that something about this weather is wrong, although she can't quite articulate why and the more she thinks about it the less sure she is. There is no good reason that she can come up with to explain why it should be impossible to go from winter to the height of summer in a matter of seconds other than the gnawing feeling that it _must _be.

She leaves the ditch behind in favor of exploring the rest of this place. There are clumps of low, scrubby bushes here and there, and occasional hills covered in long, whiplike grass. It is as she wanders that it occurs to her that she has no idea what she looks like, other than that her hair is frazzled and red and her clothes are crusty and covered in mud from being in the ditch and then rolling around in the sand.

Prodding her face with her fingers turns out to be less educational than she hoped, and she gives up after almost removing an eye with an over-enthusiastic jab. She does like the feel of her ears, though, and every now and then she runs her fingertips over the curves.

She makes a few token efforts to clean her shirt, which appears to have been pink originally, and to scrape muck off of the shoes that had been shiny once. It doesn't seems to matter much, since she hasn't seen any sign that this place is inhabited.

Scarcely has this thought crossed her mind, though, when she hears a muffled cry that might be an "Ahoy!" aborted halfway, and a large chestnut horse trots over the rise of the hill which she has been climbing. Its armored rider hangs sideways off of it, clinging to the saddle with a grim sort of determination. The horse stops short at the top of the hill, and the rider's spiked helmet falls off and rolls down the slope toward her. She picks it up gingerly.

There is a long second during which none of them move, and then, clanking with every movement, the rider falls the rest of the way off the horse. He lets out a curse when he hits the ground and struggles back to his feet, shaking sand out of his joints but looking none the worse for his fall.

She holds out his helmet, and he takes it with a deep bow that belies his clumsiness on the horse. "_Thank _you, page," he says gravely, settling it onto his head and refastening the leather buckle under his chin.

"I'm not a page," she says, surprised. Her voice rasps painfully, and she winces. The rider blinks at her several times, looking surprised.

"Then whatever are you?" he asks. "Not a pawn, surely. I should hope not. It would be most remiss of you to refrain from the attack for so long, if you were."

She stares back at him in silent incomprehension.

"A page, then," he says. "If you were not one before, then I will make you one now. You may carry my helmet for me, whenever it's not on my head. And you may carry my shield when we ride gloriously into battle!" As he speaks, he tries to remount the horse, only to fling himself right off the other side. He lands on his face with a crash, but leaps up again in a trice.

"Battle," she repeats, incredulous.

"Of course!" the rider cries. This time he's more successful in mounting, and the horse heaves an enormous sigh as the rider gathers the reigns and spurs it forward. She follows curiously. "The White Queen's men must be fought, after all, the malodorous sheepdogs. After all, two pieces canno—" he breaks off with a cry as he pitches over the horse's neck and crumples into a heap for the third time.

"He's mad," she tells the horse in bewilderment. It stomps its foot and snatches a mouthful of the grass while the rider scrambles back into the saddle.

"I am en route to intercept the vilest of my enemies, page," the rider continues, after he's kicked the horse into a reluctant walk once more. "He is ruthless, vicious, as cold-hearted a mongrel as there ever was. But never fear, for I am the Red Knight, and I—" He lets out another cry as his extravagant gesture unbalances him once more and he topples out of the saddle.

"What happens if he defeats you?" she asks.

"Then I die," the knight says, shrugging. He lunges back into the saddle, sways dangerously, and then lets out a satisfied grunt when he regains his balance. "And whoever is closest to me—that'll be you, page—will take my place as Queenside Knight when the game begins anew. That's how it works."

"How what works?"

"Why, the Glassland, of course," the knight declares. "What are you, a Wonderlander? You must be, if you don't already—" he tumbles off the back of the horse and picks himself up again without missing a beat, "—know these things?" He narrows his eyes at her over the top of his saddle before clambering up. "You'll not last long if you insist upon being so dreadfully empty-headed."

"I am _not _empty-headed," she snaps. "I only…" She trails off, realizing with some dismay that she has nothing with which to retort. Her memories stretch back to the ditch and no farther.

"Well, page?" the knight asks several minutes later, after two more falls and one near miss. "Are you a Wonderlander?"

She wracks her brain, trying and failing to remember anything that might give some hint. Popping into existence at random didn't seem very probable, but, like the weather, she couldn't think why it seemed so odd. "I'm from nowhere," she says at length.

"You can't be from nowhere; it doesn't exist," the knight says irritably. "Ah, here we are!"

They've come to a hedge, not much taller than her knees, and the knight points forward and lets out a great cry of, "ONWARDS!" before driving his spurs into the horse's side. The horse heaves a sigh and she scrambles out of the way as it gathers its legs and leaps. The knight flies out of the saddle, and she rolls her eyes and jumps over the hedge herself.

* * *

The land beyond the hedge slopes steadily upward and, after the knight has heaved himself back into the saddle, they begin to climb. The air is damp and sticky, and it doesn't take long before sweat is gathering in the small of her back, where it itches and glues her shirt to her skin. "This is the longer way 'round to the battleground," the knight says, while she struggles to keep up with the horse's easy strides.

"Why?"

The knight gives her a withering look and topples over. "The bandersnatch runs lie between he and us. Unless you wish to run afoul of them…"

"What are bandersnatches?" she asks, helping the knight to his feet.

He just shakes his head and says, "Frumious beasts. Pray that you never meet one."

"Have you ever met one?"

This elicits another scathing glance, although he stays on the horse this time. "No one," he says coldly, "has ever met a bandersnatch and lived."

They spend the next few minutes in silence, save for the clanking of the knight's armor and his brief murmur of thanks when he starts to fall towards her and she catches him by the shoulder and shoves him back upright. At last, they reach the crest of the hill and she gasps, though the sound is lost beneath the crash of the knight's latest fall.

Before them, the fields of the Glassland spreads out in a perfect grid. Another hedge, identical to the one they had gone over earlier, lies at the foot of the hill, and far beyond it there is another, and another; at right angels to them are small, straight brooks, in one of which, she realizes, she must have woken up. She can't quite see the end of the board—and she can't help thinking of it like that, since the land is so obviously organized to look like a chessboard—but she thinks she can make out a strange, multicolored haze on the horizon.

"That's the Looking Glass," the knight says, following her gaze. "Wonderland lies on the other side." He rises in his stirrups, wobbling but managing to keep his footing this time, and pointed toward the center of the board a few squares away. It's thick with trees that appear almost blue. "In that forest lies the Red King, from whose dreams the worlds were formed. And there—" he traces a long, reddish smear that covers the space of the squares separating them from the forest with his finger, "—are the bandersnatch runs. Thick with frumiage, you see, that's what colors the sand red."

"And the White Rook?" she prompts, because he seems to be preparing an even lengthier speech.

"Ah! Yes! His fortress lies in the next square!" He points again, two squares ahead of them this time. A squat, white tower rolls closer to them by inches, and she imagines she can see a little man in white armor racing around at the top. "The battle will be fierce! Danger aplenty! Are you prepared, page?"

"I suppose," she says doubtfully.

He doesn't notice her hesitation. Instead, he lets out a wordless cry and spurs the horse forward. It rears back on its hind legs and charges down the hill, kicking up bits of soil and dragging the knight along by his ankle when he falls off but doesn't clear the stirrups in time. She scrambles down after them.

* * *

The next square of the board is pleasantly cool and quite a bit dryer than the last one, with several tall, leafy trees scattered here and there. When it became clear that the battle between Red Knight and White Rook, who had arrived here just after they had, was going to take a long time, she had climbed into one of the trees to examine its leaves, which are perfectly round and about the size of her fist.

Below, the knight is still swinging his club ineffectually at the tower while the rook jeers and drops what appear to be small wooden balls off the sides. They rarely hit their mark, but whenever they do the knight clatters to the ground, picks himself up, and hauls himself back into the saddle before resuming his attack. The rook's luck is no better; his tower sways under the knight's onslaught, and every few seconds he loses his footing and collapses.

It's a little pathetic, really.

After some time, the rook tumbles from the tower at the same moment the knight is knocked out of the saddle. They land together in an undignified heap; the horse regards them both for a second or two before lowering its head to graze.

The opponents help each other to stand, and the White Rook seizes the Red Knight's hand and shakes it hard. He climbs back up his tower, shouting words that she cannot understand from this distance. The tower begins to roll sedately forward, in the direction of the square with the hill, while the knight gathers up the horse's reigns and leads it over to her tree.

"Did you win?" she asks, having no idea from her observations which one was the victor.

"Of course not," the knight says, "haven't you read the rulebook?"

"I've only just got here," she protests.

"Well, we're going back to the first rank now," the knight says. "To wait for the next game to begin. Come along, page."

They follow in the direction that the White Rook left, and when she complains of the way her shoes have begun to pinch her toes, the knight says, "Well, do climb up and give them a rest, page," and kneels to give her a leg up.

"Thank you," she says. The stirrups are too long for her, so she lets her feet dangle freely and it's remarkable how much more comfortable her shoes seem like this.

"But of course," the knight says. "I can't have an injured page, after all. When we return to the Red Castle you'll be fitted for proper boots, else you'll be poisoned by the Manxsome Marsh."

It is much faster going without the knight falling off of the horse every few paces; riding a horse is much easier than he made it look. She can't help but be smug about this, but the knight doesn't seem to notice. They travel for perhaps two hours while the colorful smear on the horizon that the knight identified as the Looking Glass grows until it dominates most of the sky, like a series of glittering clouds writhing overhead.

"What exactly is the Looking Glass?" she asks, because it certainly isn't a mirror.

"The Looking Glass is the Looking Glass," the knight says severely, and refuses to say anymore on the subject.

They stop before they reach it. In this square, there is a reddish castle with so many turrets that it looks almost like a giant stone crown. A pair of young boys dressed in scarlet tunics come rushing out and, before she can blink, they've ushered her off the horse and removed its tack, replacing the bridle with a soft red halter. The Red Knight follows them into the castle and she hurries after him, afraid of being left behind.

* * *

The castle turns out to be nothing but a very large wall. The grounds inside alternate squares of grass and dirt, and some pages are using the squares to practice chess games. The page leading the knight's horse veers off to the left, where there's a paddock with several more horses already in it.

The knight keeps going straight ahead, towards a tower that looks dizzyingly high even though she's sure it's not actually any taller than the wall. Looking at it makes her eyes cross, so she keeps her gaze trained on the knight's armor instead. Just before they enter the tower, he takes off his helmet and hands it to her without a word. She tucks it under her arm and they go in.

Inside, there is a red-and-black checkered stone floor, and a number of staircases swooping away in odd directions. One of them leads directly to a stained glass window over the door which she's certain wasn't there from the outside. Others don't seem to lead anywhere at all, or else blend seamlessly into one another or simply stop in midair.

At the far end of the hall there is a throne, on which sits a woman in a long, red dress that glistens in the light. As they draw nearer, she realizes that this is because the dress is made of chain mail, and that there is a spiky circlet of red wire nestled in the woman's shiny black hair. "Who is that?" she whispers to the knight.

"The Red Queen," he responds.

They have not quite drawn level with the throne when the Queen stands up, clinking. "Red Knight," she says, frowning. "You were defeated?"

The knight bows his head. "Yes, your Majesty," he says sheepishly. "The White Rook proved too formidable."

"Do better next time," the Queen says before turning dark eyes on her. "And who is this?" asks the Queen.

"This is my new page," the Red Knight says. "She… Her name is…"

"I'm not sure I have a name," she says, staring at her toes.

"Well, then you shall just have to be Page with a capital P," the knight says.

The Queen says, "It would have to be Paige with an I."

"Quite right," the knight says. "How about it, Paige the page?"

She nods meekly. "I could be Paige."

"Speak up and don't twiddle your thumbs so," the Queen barks. Paige forces herself to straighten up and drops her hands to her sides, holding on to her skirt to keep from fidgeting while the Queen paces around her, frowning. "Why are you so dirty?" she asks.

"I woke up in a ditch, your Majesty. It was very muddy."

"_You _say it's muddy," the Queen says. "Well, I've seen such muddy things that—never mind. You, page," she beckons for one of the other pages, who trots over. "Run this page a bath. Her name is Paige."

"Yes, your Majesty," the other page says without missing a beat. "Right away."

"Don't dawdle!" the Queen snaps, but the other page has already grabbed Paige's hand to lead her toward one of the many staircases.

"She's always like that," the page says. "You mustn't mind her. My name is Percy."

"That's a boy's name."

"It's short for Persephone," Percy says, sounding hurt.

* * *

Paige follows Percy up to the top of the staircase, where it meets not a wall like she'd thought before but a long hallway. They walk into it and gravity spins ninety degrees; Paige goes sprawling on the floor that was a wall only seconds before, but Percy doesn't even blink. "Are you all right?" she asks, helping Paige to her feet.

"Fine," Paige mutters. Her face feels like it's on fire.

"Well, all the pages live in this wing of the castle," Percy says. "Room 7a is empty right now, I think; he defected to the Whites a few days ago." She wrinkles her nose. "The Queen was in an awful temper. She told me three times not to fidget even though all I'd done was salute when she walked by. But she's not a bad sort, most of the time, you'll see."

"Oh."

"Where do you come from, anyway?" Percy asks curiously.

"Nowhere," Paige says, but this time there's a strange itch in her mind, and she's more sure than ever that her answer is, somehow or another, a lie. A chill runs down her spine and she rubs her arms, hugging herself to get rid of it.

"You can't be from nowhere," Percy says. "Everyone comes from _some_place. Is it embarrassing? Were you born in the White Court or something?"

"I wasn't born anywhere," Paige snaps.

"But…"

The white-hot sensation in her chest returns in a second, accompanied this time by a ripping feeling in her ribs. Her legs wobble beneath her and she's certain she's on the brink of flying apart into jagged shards. She's vaguely aware of Percy saying something, but it's lost in the blackness behind her eyes.

_It'snotfairit'snotfairgoawayHATEYOU—_

Her hand smashes into something too soft and the pain is gone as suddenly as it came. She's on her knees in the hallway, and Percy is on the floor not far off, clutching her cheek. Beneath her fingers, Paige can see marks that match her fingernails, and she stares at her own hand, horrified.

"I'm sorry!" she whispers, while Percy lowers her hand to look for blood. There isn't any, but there are three livid pink tracks down her cheek where the skin was scraped away. "I don't know what—what just happened—I didn't mean—"

"It's all right," Percy says shakily. "Let's. Let's get you cleaned up, you'll feel better."

She shows Paige where she can bathe and that there's a set of clean clothes about the right size in the dresser of Room 7a, and then flees. Paige runs herself a bath and scrubs under her fingernails until the tips of her fingers are raw.


	11. Glassland: Identification

**Identification**

The other pages, perhaps warned by Percy, avoid her for the most part. She doesn't blame the others for staying away. The attacks of pain which plagued her the first day never stopped, even though she hoped and hoped that they were just symptoms of being born, or whatever it is that happened to her. Percy isn't the only one Paige has hurt during an attack, so she keeps to herself most of the time.

But she gets lonely, and that is what coaxes her down to the evening campfires that happen after the last game of the day. There is always a time between games, for the pieces to regather their thoughts and plan out new strategies, to bicker among themselves and boast of their accomplishments in games past (or, in the case of some, future). The evening campfires are the only breaks long enough to be worth staying for, and Paige usually hurries to join the other chessmen after she finishes cleaning the Red Knight's armor.

Sometimes, the Kingside Bishop gives history lessons, and Paige always enjoys those nights best. He has a nice voice, and the stories he tells of the Glassland are better than the frivolous details of who-captured-whom in the latest game. Often, he tells of the Jabberwock, banished to the distant mountains by the White Court after the time of the First Alice.

Tonight, the tale is of the Red King, who dreamt the world into being. "In the beginning," the bishop says while the rest of them gather close around the fire, "the Red King's dreams were little more than scraps. It was the Tweedles, borne of this dream, who cobbled them together and built a sword to anchor the pieces. That sword exists still, deep in the Forest of Names.

"Many have tried to wield it, for it is sharp enough to cut through anything, even thoughts, even feelings. But if anyone but the Red King tried to use it, they wouldn't just die. They would be erased; they would never have existed."

All of the assemblage is very impressed by this except for Paige, who asks, "Which sword is stronger, the Red King's or the Vorpal?"

"That," the bishop says with a frown, "is not a valid question. The Red King's sword can destroy and create; the Vorpal Sword is dangerous only to the Jabberwock and useless in any other situation. The only similarity between them, my dear page, is that they are both swords."

"But why?" Paige asks. "Why make a sword that can only hurt one specific animal that's the last of its kind anyway?"

"The Jabberwock," the bishop says, now looking quite put out, "is an mistake of nature. It cannot be the last of its kind because it was always the only one and it came from nothing. It is not an animal; it is an aberration."

Paige winces and lets the subject go.

* * *

"Page," the knight tells her the next day, while she's thumbing through a book of poems between games. "Why don't you take a game off? You've worked very hard." She shrugs in answer, grateful for the opportunity for a rest.

When the game has actually started, though, the unnatural stillness feels like an enormous force bent on crushing her. She changes into plainclothes so that she won't be bothered by the white chessmen and hurries out of the silence. Once beyond the castle walls, the tight bands around her lungs ease and she's confronted with another problem, which is that she's never been outside the castle alone before.

She picks her way to the square where the Queen's Express runs every quarter hour and sneaks aboard, ducking out two squares later when the ticket-checker strolls her way. Not far from the station, the Forest of Names begins, dark and unwelcoming. She has never been past the first trees, because the Red Knight preferred to avoid it, and she is a little shy of doing so now. What would she do if she forgot herself?

She ventures in along the shady path with no small amount of trepidation, waiting for a fuzziness in her thoughts or an itch in the back of her mind or _something _to indicate that the forest had stolen her name like it was supposed to. When nothing happens she starts to murmur it under her breath every other step. "Paige," she whispers, and it echoes strangely between the thick trunks.

After a while she comes to a fork in the path. There's a mossy signpost with both markers pointing to the right. One says "To Tweedledum's House," the other, "To the House of Tweedledee."

Her head throbs nastily when she begins down the right path, but it's a kind of pain that she's used to ignoring by now. She walks for what seems like quite a long time before she becomes aware of indistinct shouting and picks up the pace. She peers around a tree and sees two strange, round little men scuffling in the middle of a clearing. There's something odd about the sight that Paige can't quite put her finger on, until they both kick each other's kneecaps in perfect unison and she realizes that they have been mirroring each other's actions the whole time.

"Excuse me," she says, stepping out from behind the tree. They both look at her. "Are you Tweedledum and Tweedledee?" She thinks they must be, because the word "DUM" is stitched onto one of their collars and "DEE" onto the other.

"We _might _be," says Dum.

"Contrariwise, if we aren't, we ain't," says Dee.

"And if we weren't, it wouldn't be, nohow, but as we are, it is," Dum concludes triumphantly.

"That's logic," says Dee.

Paige opens her mouth, closes it again, and then remembers herself and says, "I don't suppose you could tell me why this forest hasn't taken my name? I was told it did that."

"It takes _names_, right enough," Dum says.

"Contrariwise, if it ain't a name it mightn't, nohow," Dee added.

"But I have a name," Paige protests. "Sort of."

"If you've still got your name, it ain't one, nohow."

"And it mustn't be, because you do. That's—"

"Logic, yes," Paige says wearily. "But it is my name, and I _do _still have it. It's Paige."

"How d'you do!" say both Dee and Dum at once, and each extend an arm for her to shake. She takes them tentatively, and the two begin to hop in a circle, dragging her along with them. The dance sends daggers down her spine.

"Stop, stop!" she cries, struggling to pull her hands out of their grips. They let go very suddenly and she sprawls on the floor of the clearing, which is damp and carpeted with moldering leaves. "What on earth was that for?" she demands, sitting up.

The Tweedles blink at her. "I hope you're not much tired?" Dum asks at last.

"No," she says.

"You ought to say 'And thank you very much for asking,'" Dum says.

"Contrariwise, if she isn't grateful, she shouldn't, but if she is, she must."

"Please, I just want to know why the forest hasn't taken my name even though it should have," Paige says. "Not that I'm not grateful for that, of course," she adds after a moment's thought.

"You aren't an ordinary sort of person, nohow," Dum says.

"And if you were, it would, so as it hasn't, you ain't," Dee says.

Paige retreats back the way she came in disgust, having learnt nothing.

* * *

There are tears scalding her eyes by the time she leaves the Forest of Names behind, and she isn't sure if they're from the shooting pains in her abdomen or being told that she isn't _right_. She wipes them on her sleeve before they can fall and she is just lowering her arm when she hears it.

The screaming shatters through her ears, pain so audible it's like bones shattering over and over and over. It comes from the bandersnatch runs, and her heart jumps into her mouth as she sprints.

She has never ventured onto the runs themselves before. The reddish sand is coarser than she expects. The smell of musty potatoes coats the air, and she gags on it as she scrambles to find the screamer. She isn't expecting the trench that slices through the ground, and she falls into it with a scream of her own.

She lands on something hard and spiny that knocks the wind out of her lungs. It bucks underneath her and she tumbles off of it and onto a horribly squishy, sticky something that, from the way it gurgles, is what remains of the screamer.

Her head spins as she struggles to focus on the thing she landed on. It's a massive—_thing_—like a great scaly horse with boney lumps growing from its back and sides at all angles. But its head is worse: it looks like a piece of wax that had melted halfway, a twisted and awful thing with a wide, gaping mouth filled with too many teeth, and it makes a sound between a growl and a hiss.

Its ratty tail whips back and forth over the sand and Paige can tell it's quickly getting over the surprise that had kept it from attacking for so long. The bandersnatch throws its head up and shrieks; the sound is like shards of glass digging into her ears. She scrambles back, over the body—the corpse, it isn't screaming anymore, it's dead—her hands slipping in the red sludge around her. Her heart pounds so hard that the only thing she can hear is the blood roaring by her ears, which is almost a relief because now she can't hear the bandersnatch snarling at her.

It lunges, and she kicks at its head with all her strength, made even stronger by terror. Her foot connects with its jaw and she howls in agony as she feels her toe break, but the bandersnatch staggers away and that's all that matters. It's enough time to scrabble up against the wall of the trench and haul herself up, heedless of the electricity stabbing out from her foot.

The bandersnatch crouches close to the ground—its legs bend all wrong, like a spider's—its teeth bared, long ropes of spittle dangling from its lips. "Come on, then!" Paige screams, dizzy from the slamming of her heart, but the bandersnatch only hisses once before scuttling away.

She sways a little, waiting for it to return, before she comes to her senses again and looks down at the screamer. The corpse. He's a pawn, she realizes, a Red Pawn, not one she knows by name but she recognizes his face and his curly black hair, matted now with blood. And he isn't quite dead, either, just too weak to scream anymore.

She falls next to him, and it dawns on her that she's smeared with his blood as if she and not the bandersnatch were the one to kill him. She fights not to be sick all over him when he grabs her hand with what little strength he has left. His breath crackles one final time while she watches the life dissolve out of his eyes.

The promotion sinks into her shoulders like rain.

* * *

She isn't strong enough to carry the pawn, so she drags him back to the Red Castle. Everything hurts, but her foot is the worst; every time she steps on it pain shoots up her leg like the bandersnatch's shriek and the world goes blurry from tears. When she makes it near enough to the castle for the pages to notice her, her face is slick with salty water and the pawn's blood is beginning to crust on her clothes, her hands, cracking where the skin creases.

The horror she felt in the runs has retreated, leaving nothing in its wake. When her thoughts aren't _painpainpain_, they're quiet and echo inside her chest, where her heart and lungs ought to be.

The pages race out and the interrogation washes over her in waves. Everyone wants to know what happened.

"It was a bandersnatch," she whispers. "I found him in the run… he was screaming… you must have heard it…" Her head spins. "It ran off…"

"What did?"

"The bandersnatch."

She tries to take a deep breath to steady herself, but the heavy scent of blood rushes in with the oxygen she needs and suddenly she isn't empty at all but filled to the brim with lead. It's all she can do to stay upright.

"Paige," someone says. Percy, she realizes after a minute, but her voice is distorted by the weights in Paige's ears. "Paige, are you all right?"

"I'm not Paige anymore," she says. She's aware of arms around her, holding her up. "Can't be Paige the _pawn_."

Everything is colored in shadows and flat like a tapestry. Perhaps that is why it's suddenly so impossible to stay in three dimensions.

* * *

She can't move her arms, no matter how hard she struggles. When she tries to scream, all that comes out is a rasp, and now there are things pinning her down and she bares her teeth and kicks out blindly. It doesn't work and stars dance behind her eyelids when the impact sends a jolt of electricity streaking up her leg. Her foot burns in its wake.

A bubble of sound pops, and her eyes snap open. Blurry red shapes blot out the worst of the light, and she can see now that the things holding her down are people, so she relaxes somewhat. She grapples with memory while her vision slips in and out of focus, and comes up with a hazy impression of collapsing on someone.

"Who—" she coughs, surprised by the dusty feeling in her throat. "Who did I fall on?"

"That'd be me," Percy says, leaning down to brush a few stray pieces of hair out of Paige's face. She twitches away from the contact, startled.

"Sorry."

"It's all right," Percy says. "Do you feel better?"

Paige tries to sit up and gets an inch or two above the bed before her back and arms throb so badly it makes the whole world dim. "No," she groans. A few more memories float to the surface. "What happened to the pawn?"

"He's dead, Paige, remember?" Percy says gently. The bottom drops out of Paige's stomach. "You're the pawn now."

"Not Paige," she says. "I have to be something else if I'm a pawn." She thinks as hard as she can through the pained fog still drifting between each thought. If she chooses her own name, maybe it'll be a real one, but how to know the _right _one? She reaches for something, any hint, and thinks of the First Alice, who came from nowhere just like her. The letters roll sedately through her mind, and she waits until they form some kind of order again to read what they say. "Celia," she says. "I'll be Celia now." It fits better than Paige, and she can't wait to get to the Forest of Names to check.

* * *

Celia is on her feet again, if still limping, by the time the next game starts, although not soon enough to attend the burial of the pawn whom she replaced. Before she leaves the castle she is given a short stick about the length of her forearm and a round, red helmet that slips over her eyes when she tries it on. She tucks it under her arm and carries it that way, reasoning that it might be useful for carrying things in.

She goes straight to the Forest of Names with her heart pounding. There is a White Bishop between her and the forest, but she catches him unawares and drives him off easily enough with a sound blow to his kneecaps. He hobbles away, and Celia's path to the forest is clear.

Once again, she hesitates at the edge of the trees. They seem even bigger and more tangled than they did before, but she has to _know_. She walks between the two trees that frame the path, and says, "My name is Celia."

Then one more step, and then another, and another, until she reaches the sign that points to the Tweedles' house and whispers, "Celia." She reaches for the sign, and it crumbles to damp splinters in her grip, a victim of rot just like her.


	12. Glassland: Dysphoria

**Dysphoria**

The Red Knight beams at her and says, "It was a glorious victory, was it not?"

"It was," she says, her voice syrupy and unsettling. He doesn't notice, but lifts his helmet off of his head to shake out his sweaty hair and then hands her his club while he crawls back into the saddle. He makes such an inviting target that, had she not already been determined, she thinks she might do it anyway.

She swings.

The club connects with the Red Knight's head with a satisfying _crack_, and he made a soft noise of surprise as he tumbled backwards from the horse. She had worried that he might suffer no injury, since his habit of falling on his head had done him no discernible harm, but she sees now that she needn't have done. His skull is misshapen, caved in like a deflated ball.

She crouches over him to examine the injury more closely while the promotion worms its way under her skin. The former knight makes a wet, gurgling sound when she explores the surprisingly squishy wound with her fingers.

Celia opens her eyes and stares for some time at the wooden ceiling of her bedroom while she waits for the dream to fade. It does, slowly, until it is nothing but a distorted recollection of a weapon and blood on her hands, just as it has every other time. She wonders if all pawns dream of promotion like this.

She's pretty sure they don't.

* * *

She plays too cautiously, rarely venturing past the Wabe River that bisects the board. The other pawns tease her about it, of course, and she knows they call her a coward when she's not around to hear. They don't believe her (and why should they?) when she tells them that she's only maintaining a defensive line.

She never mentions the dreams, or that on days like today when there's no one to see she goes back to the bandersnatch runs. She meanders over the coarse sand, pulling up slender stalks of frumiage and rolling them between her fingers to learn the thorns. Once she tried the edible leaves, but they taste like rancid meat and she hasn't touched them again.

Every so often she meets a bandersnatch. Their shrieks are so loud that several times her ears bleed, but their bones are brittle and easy to crack. She makes great use of the truncheon and they learn how to run away.

Today is not one of those days, not yet at any rate, so she goes to the trench where she found the pawn. The stains from his blood have faded by now, but she never has trouble finding the right spot; the frumiage grows thicker here.

She pushes through the stalks that grow almost to her hips, ignoring the bites the thorns take out of her legs, to search for the exact place where the pawn's head lay, where she knelt when he exhaled for the last time. She hasn't found it yet, and she has little hope of doing so in the future.

The bandersnatch, unusually, arrives without a sound. She feels its breath stirring the air and looks up, and it is there, crouched on the edge of the cliff above her head, watching her with flat, unreflective black eyes. They regard each other, unmoving.

"Why am I still alive?" Celia asks quietly. The bandersnatch flexes its paws on the edge of the trench, and a few clumps of sand fall. "Why do you always run away?"

Its muscles surge beneath scaly skin, and Celia stands quite still as it leaps over her head, twisting in midair so that it lands on her other side, it's facing her. Still it doesn't charge, nor do anything threatening except hiss lowly when she wades through the frumiage toward it.

"I'm just a pawn," she tells it. "A pawn just like the one you killed when I found you." She reaches out, and the bandersnatch hunkers down on its haunches and makes a new sound, almost a whine.

She expects the scales to be cold, slimy even, but they're quite warm and dry under her fingers. They are not exactly smooth, but she traces the edge of the bandersnatch's snout and it feels like running her hand over thousands of tiny glass beads. "_Why_?" she asks again. Her voice cracks, like her own weak imitation of the bandersnatch's cry.

It hisses and writhes under her touch or perhaps at the question, and then it jerks away to run. Something hot and sticky and painful erupts in her midsection, and she lunges after it with a cry that burns her mouth as it leaves. Her fingers catch on one of the large fangs protruding from between the bandersnatch's lips, and it freezes again.

She drags the unwilling creature closer, not caring that her fingers are being sliced to the bone by the razor-edge of the tooth. Its legs stir ineffectually in the sand, but now it is close enough that she can feel the heat rising from its head against her forehead. "What is so wrong about me that even you don't want me?" she whispers, and the bandersnatch makes a high keening noise before its legs collapse beneath it.

The tooth, slick with her own blood, slides out of her hand as the bandersnatch crumples. Its head hits the sand with a thud, and it doesn't get up again. She waits; after a minute or two, purplish ichor begins to dribble out of its mouth.

Timid now, she kneels to touch its snout again. The scales bubble on contact with the blood still dripping from her wounded fingers, and when she pulls her hand away, long strips of flesh drop away after it. There is nothing but rank sludge underneath, the stench of it strong enough to make her eyes water. She lets her hand fall to her side.

* * *

Celia buries the bandersnatch in the shadows of the trench, digging the hole with her bare hands in the thin strip of bare sand between the last of the frumiage and the place where the sandstone cliff juts out of the ground. The sand is rough and sharper than she imagined it would be, and it stings the open cuts on her hand while she digs.

The bandersnatch is too big to move in one piece, but this turns out not to be an issue because it's coming apart at the seams by the time the grave is deep enough. More of the foul-smelling muck oozes out wherever the carapace splits open. Where it touches her skin, it itches and then blisters when she claws at the sensation.

By the time she finishes, the sky is thick with dark grey clouds and it's begun to drizzle lightly, enough to make her hair fluff up like a frightened cat and trail icy fingers below her skin. She knows the game must be over by now, but she keeps wandering aimlessly, having no desire to return to the castle. The bandersnatch's liquefied insides are crusted on her clothes, in her hair, and she doesn't want to have to explain herself to the Red Court.

She walks until she hits water and can go no further. The sand here is finer than in the bandersnatch runs, except in the patches where it is prickly with broken seashells. The tide is coming in and as she follows the shoreline, the waves foam over her boots and then sucks at the ground beneath her when it rushes away again. The roar of water coming and going fills her head and blots out the whispers of thought, and she likes the sensation so much that she pulls off her boots and wades deeper into the surf to see if that will help.

It doesn't, but the cool water stings and then soothes her hands, so she crouches into the waves to scrape away the sludge caked on her skin and clothes. When she is mostly clean again she slogs back to where she left her boots on the beach, and the salt begins to itch as soon as she leaves the water behind.

* * *

The water dries as she makes her meandering way back to the castle, leaving an off-white crust on her clothes. When she arrives at last, it's to find the other chessman in the sort of high-energy state usually reserved for the beginning of the first game of the day. None of them spare her bedraggled appearance a second glance—they're used to her returning late and salt is by far preferable to other things she's come home covered with in the past, after all—but she grabs a passing pawn by the elbow to ask. "What's all this?" she asks.

"Delivery from the Tea Company," he tells her, pointing. There's a procession of carts, all covered in canvas tarps, in the direction he indicates, and chessman are swarming around it and shouting. "We're moving those to the Looking Glass House. Special order from the March Hare, you know." He puffs up his chess proudly.

Celia sidles over and helps shove the carts back down the board and to the House. She's never been closer than the rude flowerbeds before; the backwards directions make her head pound. The House crowded and noisy, and through the chaotic hustle of red and white chessmen, she catches a glimpse of someone who can only be the March Hare, a pillar of irregular pinstripes leaning on an axe and watching the proceedings with a bored but watchful eye.

She's never seen anyone like him. Even standing still as he is right now, he gives the impression of movement—perhaps it's the stripes—and the sharpness of his mouth when he gives an order and the pages scramble to obey makes her ache to get close enough to hear him properly, to see if his voice is as abrasive as the rest of him.

But he's the March Hare and he's far too busy to bother with a pawn who isn't even _right_, let alone able to provide any meaningful assistance to anyone else, so she squeezes herself behind the grandfather clock with the shattered face and the lopsided grin and watches, hoping and fearing that he'll look her way and see.

* * *

She stays behind the clock in the House until the other chessmen have gone and there's just the March Hare checking the shipment list one more time before closing the scarab's cargo hold. Above them, the ceiling hums, and colors surge around the edges of Celia's vision. She clings to the clock to stay upright, but the March Hare barely seems to notice.

When she can open her eyes without feeling that they're about to be forced out of their sockets by the pressure inside her skull, the ceiling is gone and the March Hare is ensconced in the scarab. She can make out his silhouette through the thick glass of the windshields, and then the scarab whirrs up out of the House and into the colorful storm of the Looking Glass above.

The House settles, and she totters deeper into it until she reaches the gardens. Her skin feels like spun sugar, her bones like blown glass, and between the two there is nothing, perhaps not even air. The flowers' jeers, the rain, her own footsteps, all of it threatens to be the blow that makes her collapse.

She finds the Red Queen overseeing the flowerbeds with her usual haughty glare, which softens only slightly when she sees Celia. "Don't twiddle your thumbs, pawn," she says, but there's less of a bark in her voice than usual. "Tell me what's the matter and speak up when you do."

"I…" Celia scowls. The words are right _there_, just far enough out of reach that she can't remember what they are. "I don't… think I belong here," she says at last. "There's—there's—Everything here is more real than I am. I go to sleep and I wonder who's going to wake up in the morning."

"Do you think," the Red Queen says, with surprising kindness, "that there's something wrong with you?"

The blisters that Celia has barely thought about in the excitement of the March Hare's arrival and departure begin to sting once more. A similar sensation takes root in her bones. "I don't know if there's enough of me here to be wrong," she chokes out the words while spots dance before her eyes. "But it _hurts_."

"A promotion might help," the Red Queen says. "If you go across the board…"

"I don't want to be a queen," Celia says, wiping her eyes angrily. "I want—I want—" Hazy recollections of her dreams, patched and fragmented though they are, rise to the surface of her memory. "I want to be a knight."

"That can be arranged," the Red Queen says. "If you go across the board."


	13. Glassland: Erasure

**Erasure**

She expected there to be some ceremony, some small token of the effort which it took to fight her way across eight squares, through the Forest of Names and the Wabe river and the hordes of white chessmen who stood between her and the far end of the board. Instead, she wanders into the White Castle, which is indistinguishable from the Red Castle in everything except color scheme. It takes a while for the White Queen to notice her, and then a red club and a saddlebag packed with matches and a bedroll and a small, rusty pot for cooking are shoved into her hands. Vague congratulations are offered, and she is left to her own devices again.

Celia rambles over to the paddock, where a small boy of perhaps six or seven is perched on the fence, watching the horses graze. He's dressed like a page, his neck still pink from scrubbing. "Hallo," he says, once he's noticed her. "Are you a knight?"

"I suppose so," Celia says.

"I'm Jack," he announces, hopping off of the fence and peering up at her very seriously. "I'm going to be a knight one day. A White Knight. Do you go on adventures?"

"Not really."

Jack's face falls. "Why not?"

"I've only been one for a minute," Celia snaps, but Jack flinches and her ire drains out through her feet, leaving behind a cold, sucking sensation in her lungs. "I'm sorry," she says. "I… My name's Celia?"

"That's not a very good name for a knight," Jack mumbles, still sounding hurt.

"Maybe I should get a different one," Celia says.

He brightens right away. "You could be Jacqueline!" he says.

"I don't think so." She casts about for an alternative, but the threads of creativity that inspired _Celia_ almost two years ago have long since abandoned her. She sighs. "Maybe I should just be Red."

"But there's lots of red chessman," Jack says.

"None of them are named Red, though," she says. "And it wouldn't have to be Red like the chessmen, either, it could—it could be red like the bandersnatch runs, or red like—" She stops herself just in time. People tend to look at her strangely whenever she talks about blood; she doubts a child would be any different.

"Red like your hair?" Jack suggests while the back of his neck turns scarlet.

"Sure," Red says. "Like my hair."

"My mom has red hair," Jack says. "She runs the Tea Company with Madam Sheep."

"I don't think I know either of them," Red says.

"Their office is in the Forest of Names, right on the Wabe," Jack says. "They sell a lot of things. But mostly tea." He leans to one side to look past Red, and she turns to follow his gaze just as he says, "I have to go. My friends are waiting," and runs off to meet a group of other pages.

A few chestnuts graze alongside the greys that the white chessmen favor, and Red takes one with her when she leaves.

* * *

As she rides away from the castle, an odd weight appears in the pit of her stomach. It only grows heavier as she approaches the Forest of Names, and soon is accompanied by a high-pitched buzz which seems to emanate from inside her head. The noise sets her teeth on edge and the weight turns her vision foggy with tears that she's very certain don't belong to her. When they start to spill over, she decides there's nothing for it but to sit quietly until this—whatever it is—passes.

The horse grazes nearby while she curls up in the shadow of a hedge and bites down on her knuckles to muffle the loud, shuddering sobs now clawing their way out of her throat. Each breath feels like snapping another of the threads that hold her so tenuously together, or like something alien that took root in her intestines and keeps trying to force its way out into the real world through the gaps between each cell.

She must be making more noise than she thought, because a voice that Red recognizes as Percy's calls out, "Hello? Is someone there?"

"No," Red chokes around another gasp. It's close enough to the truth that she's surprised when Percy vaults over the hedge anyway and lands a foot or two away from her face.

"Celia— Oh, Celia, what's wrong?"

Red doesn't bother to correct the name; it's all she can do to whimper, "I don't _know_."

Percy loops an arm under Red's shoulders and tugs her out from beneath the hedge despite the weak protestations that Red offers until she realizes that she feels more anchored this way. It will be harder to break loose from the earth and dissipate into the atmosphere if someone else is holding her back. "You must have some idea," Percy says.

She's right, of course, or she should be and Red scrambles for an explanation. The best she can come up with is, "I thought becoming a knight would make me more real." Saying it helps, and the sobbing recedes to more quiet sniffling.

"Give it time," Percy says.

"I'm not sure I _have _time," Red whispers. "I'm a little less every second."

"You're right _here_," Percy says. "You're as solid as the day I met you."

"There's too much— you don't understand. I—" She struggles away, clinging to the grass to anchor herself. "My skin isn't enough to hold everything in. It's splitting open and I can _feel _it."

Percy reaches over and squeezes her shoulders. "You're imagining things, Celia."

Red looks away. "Call me Red, now," she says. "Celia was never right for me." She has a horrible suspicion that Red isn't, either, but she can't think of anything better.

"I thought Celia was nice," Percy offers.

"I like Red better."

"Okay," Percy says. "It's going to be okay, you know."

Red scrubs her sleeve over her cheeks and scrambles to her feet. "I've telling myself that for four years now," she says. "It keeps not being okay. This—" She tugs on her collar, which is suddenly far too tight. "You're not _listening_ to me! Nobody listens!"

"You never tell anyone anything," Percy says, getting up too. "You just say that it hurts or that you're wrong and you won't say _why_. We can't help you if you won't let us—"

"There is someone behind my face trying to push through to the real world," Red says, dragging her fingers through her hair. Strands of it come out with her hands, winding so tightly that it stings. "I'm not—I'm not—" She can see the skepticism in Percy's eyes. "I'm not crazy," she whispers. "I'm not." Her head throbs and she winces. "It's true. I can feel it."

"You're not crazy," Percy says.

"It's real," Red says. "It's realer than me."

"You're real."

"How do you _know_?!" Red snarls.

Percy flinches. "I can see you," she says. "You're right there. There's nothing trying to get out of you."

"The Tweedles can see it," Red says desperately.

"The Tweedles are insane," Percy tells her. The gentleness in her voice bites, and Red strides to her horse without another word. She can't be here anymore.

* * *

She isn't surprised when she rides into the Forest of Names and her newest name stays with her. Several toves are rooting around in the mud along the banks of the Wabe, and as she approaches they scatter for their burrows, outgribing loudly. The horse snorts nervously, and she glowers after the toves on principle.

She finds a place shallow enough to ford. On the other side there's a lopsided building; along the side of it in peeling paint are the words "GLASSLAND TEA COMPANY EST. 1872." Red peers in a window to see the dusty, bare shelves within, and doesn't go inside. Just beyond it is the path that leads to the Tweedles; she is in no mood to see them either, so she takes the other branch of the fork instead.

Not long after the horse balks, tossing her head and shying to the side. Low, rumbling noises fill the air like very quiet thunder on an infinite loop. The horse reaches a point at which she will go no further, so Red loops the reins over a low tree branch and walks ahead to investigate alone. She keeps her hand on her club, just in case.

When she comes upon the source of the noise, she almost misses it. The rumbling emanates from a small, rather ugly man with an enormous red nightcap pulled down over his eyes. He's curled up in the roots of a tree with his knees over his chest, snoring at an incredible volume. As Red draws nearer, she sees that there's a sword lying next to him in a sheath made of red leather. A shiver runs up her spine; there are only two swords in all of the Glassland and she's certain she knows which this is.

She eases forward and reaches out, wondering what it would be like to cease to exist so utterly that she never was. Just before her fingers touch the hilt, she hesitates for a second, fear and curiosity waging violent war in her head. The cacophony makes her skull feel like it's splitting open along the sutures.

She lunges the last inch or so to clutch at the sword, and the shock it sends up her arm when her fingers close around the hilt bowls her over. The breath roars out of her lungs when she hits the ground, still clutching the sword. She fights to get it back while the ground spins beneath her.

After some time she grows aware of a dull pain in her hands, pounding in time with her pulse and getting more severe with every breath. Red lifts them above her to see; the skin of her palms is shiny and red, already blistering along the pads of her fingers. She tries to curl them into fists and shrieks from the pain that scours through them, her knees jackknifing up toward her chest while she tries to cradle her hands without moving them.

It takes too long for the gaping blue-black holes in her vision to close. Red kicks the Red King's sword away from herself and struggles to her feet, using her elbows to force herself upright. Blood drains away from her head as she stands, leaving her light-headed and swaying, and she stumbles back the way she came. The trees rustle with a breeze she can't feel, and the sound is like branches laughing at her.

* * *

The Tweedles aren't in their clearing when she staggers into it with her horses's reins draped over her shoulders. Red explores the surrounding trees until she finds a small cottage, and she doesn't knock so much as flop against the door and hope they hear her, because her hands feel like they're melting and it takes all of her concentration not to simply collapse.

The door gives way to greet her, and she falls sideways. She lands against a shoulder, and an inch or so from her nose are the letters DUM. Her tongue doesn't seem to be working right, but eventually she manages to navigate her way to a mostly-understandable, "Help."

They pick her up or she starts flying—neither would surprise her—and the gaps appear in her vision again. This time they don't shrink but grow wider and wider, until the fabric of what she can see is held together by nothing but a few threads of light.

She would have expected being erased to be quicker than this.

A surprisingly cool finger is jammed into her cheek to lever her jaw open, and something viscous and bitter is poured into her mouth. A large chunk of something hot and tasting of rotting oranges rolls over her tongue and down her throat, and she retches, although nothing come up.

The Tweedles speak somewhere above her; she can't make out individual words and their voices blend together into one unbroken—

_Pain._ Pain like icicles driving into her mind jagged and razor sharp and deadly, searing and burning and ripping and cutting and _poison_ filling in the wounds in a mockery of growth, roots digging into every opening and tying and binding and gripping and holding her down can't _escape _and pain _there_ there in her mind like a spider in its web and _laughing_ and _pain pain painpainpainpainpainPAIN_

Her whole world is a sound like the world splitting open, and it isn't until it begins to fade and she can think in full sentences again that she realizes that the noise comes from her. The last of it ripples out of her throat, and she slumps. Everything is suddenly dark and grey and quiet, and she is too drained to even enjoy this reprieve.

Gradually, she becomes aware of the voices again.

"She mightn't be dead, nohow."

"Contrariwise, if she were, we wouldn't remember."

"She didn't touch it, at least. She mustn't have."

"If she had, she wouldn't be."

"Nohow."

"Logic," Red mumbles as well as she is able. Her hands don't hurt anymore, but her throat feels as if she swallowed a ball of razors.

"Not dead at all, then."

"Contrariwise, if she were, she couldn't be talking."

"And since she is, she can't be, nohow."

Red opens one eye just enough to check her hands. The skin is smooth and there is no evidence of the burns the Red King's sword inflicted on her. "What happened?" She squints past her hands; the Tweedles are staring at her with an odd mix of concern and curiosity.

"You lived," Dee says.

"If you hadn't, you couldn't ask, nohow," Dum adds, frowning at her.

"That's logic."

"Try sitting up," Dum says.

She obeys, limbs trembling. "You two gave me something," she croaks. The remembered taste of whatever it was makes her stomach churn.

"It was medicine," Dum says.

"If it weren't, you wouldn't be better."

"Thanks," Red says.

"You shouldn't go so near the Red King again, nohow," Dum says.

Red only nods and the Tweedles escort her out of their house. It is much darker than she remembers it being before, but her horse is still waiting in the clearing, chewing contentedly. She pulls herself into the saddle and directs her back to the Red Castle without a word.

* * *

It's Percy who greets her when she gets back to the castle, just as the last tinges of the sunset are fading into night. "Oh, thank the King, you're all right," she says, hurrying forward to catch the reins that have slipped through Red's fingers.

Red dismounts or falls, and Percy is there to catch her, too, so it doesn't matter which it is. "I wouldn't be so sure of that," she mumbles.

"When you didn't come back after the last game we all thought you were bleeding out somewhere," Percy says a little reprovingly. "Where were you?"

She's tired enough that the truth spills out. "I tried to erase myself," she says, then whimpers when Percy's arms tighten around her so much that her ribs creak. "It would have been easier for everyone," Red adds when Percy demands to know why.

"Red, _no_," Percy says. Red struggles upright to look at her, barely hiding her flinch when Percy tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear. "Nothing would be better if you were gone."

"I might be," Red whispers.

This time it's Percy who winces. "You can't mean that."

"I don't know. Maybe?"

Percy's face twists like a bandersnatch's. "Is there anything I can do? To help?"

Red tries to laugh; it comes out more like a scream. "If I knew what I wanted, maybe," she says. "But I'm not even right enough to know that."

"You will," Percy says, with bizarre confidence. "You're less wrong than you think, Red." She strokes Red's hair for a moment more, then smiles. The pity in her eyes makes Red's stomach burn, and she looks away. "Come on, let's get inside. It's getting cold."

She lets Red go, but keeps hold of her hand to lead her into the castle, perhaps realizing that Red is in no state to walk completely under her own power.


	14. Glassland: Pâro

**Pâro**

She begins to look for the Vorpal Sword. After all, she is an anomaly just like the Jabberwock, so perhaps the sword meant for one mistake will treat another with some kindness. It is better hidden than the Red King's sword, however, and for months she meets with no luck.

Her search is not a total loss, though. Red rambles over the entire length of the Glassland, from the Fitful Sea on the kingside of the board to the barren wastelands on the queenside. The bandersnatch runs are already hers, but now she explores the white side of the board, too, sometimes even going so far as to skulk along the walls that guard the White Court from the Jabberwock in the mountains.

The more she sees of the Glassland, the more beautiful it seems and the less a part of it she feels, like a scrap of a charcoal sketch pinned to an oil painting. She takes to hiking to the top of what the white chessmen call Lookout Point, which is the highest point on the board and sets her apart from the action, as it should be.

At the peak of Lookout Point, the constant wind pierces straight through her without resistance so she has no fear of blowing away. Sometimes she scoops up handfuls of sand and tosses them into the wind, and it always surprises her when it doesn't blow through her as well.

Percy asks her where she goes during the games, since Red never has any stories to share around the evening fires and even the Queen has despaired of ever provoking an interest in the pointless mockery of fighting that occurs between chessmen. None of the others care about a page tagging along after a knight, even one as useless as Red, so today she makes the climb with company.

"You really just sit here all day?" Percy asks when they've reached the top and she is huddled next to Red, trying and failing to fix the wind-tossed remnants of her braid. The loose strands make a dark spiderweb over her face until she gets it under control again "Don't you get bored?"

"No," Red says, already beginning to regret this excursion.

"What do you do if someone attacks you?"

Red shrugs. "They don't. I go into the bandersnatch runs and no one's ever been brave enough to follow me."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"I killed a bandersnatch last year. I haven't seen a single one since." She squirms, drawing nonsense lines in the sand with her toes. "I think it's them that are afraid of me."

Percy's eyes are huge. "You killed a bandersnatch? But they're so—"

"Frumious, yes," Red says wearily. "I— It bit me and my blood poisoned it, I think." Percy keeps staring at her, eyes even wider than before, her mouth open in surprise. Red reaches out and pushes it shut irritably. "I've been telling you all for years that I'm wrong. You've no right to be so surprised."

A spike of ice drives into her gut when Percy leans over and wraps an arm around her shoulders. "You might be wrong for the bandersnatches, Red, but you're not wrong for me. Us."

"Us?"

"The Red Court. You're one of us."

"No, I'm not," Red says. "You don't have to lie to me. I know what they say about me when they think I'm not listening."

Percy scowls fiercely at her. "Anyone who would go into the bandersnatch runs willingly is no coward, Red."

Red doesn't bother to point out the obvious flaws in that logic, and for a while the only sound is the screeches of the bandersnatches below and the wind gusting around them. "The Jabberwock has poisonous blood. They say." Red says eventually.

"You're not like the Jabberwock," Percy replies. "You don't eat people."

"No, I just kill bandersnatches." Her abdomen spasms again and she squirms out of Percy's grasp. Right away she regrets it, because the absence of weight leaves her feeling light-headed. She feels for something solid to hold on to and finds Percy's arm. "Thank you," she says. "You've always been so nice to me even though I hurt you."

"It was just a scratch," Percy says, "and that was five years ago besides."

"Still," Red says. Her vision skitters away from her, leaving the world grey and pockmarked with darkness, and she tightens her grip on Percy's arm until she knows she must be causing pain. Percy eases a little closer, enough to warm Red's shoulder but not melt the ice creeping through her stomach and chest. "Percy."

"What?"

Red doesn't respond, only presses nearer and drops her head onto Percy's shoulder. Percy tugs her arm out of Red's grip to hug her instead, and still it isn't sufficient.

"What is it, Red?" Percy asks again, concerned now.

Ideas percolate through her head, but they're all half-formed and foggy, mostly useless. Red chooses the most solid of them and tentatively brushes her mouth against the place where Percy's jaw meets her neck. Percy twitches like she's been stung.

"Red—" she begins, in quite a different tone than before.

"I figured out what I want," Red breathes, then corrects herself. "Or rather whom I want." Percy shivers, and Red traces the edges of her jaw with a fingernail, light as a ghost.

Percy curls around, trembling, and Red tilts just enough to meet her. Her stomach twitches in a way that is nothing like pain, and the ice _finally _melts. It's only fair to show her gratitude by combing her fingers through Percy's hair and kissing her back. She pushes gently and Percy collapses by inches into the sand, and a stab of guilt joins the warmth radiating through her when Percy whimpers.

"We should get back," she whispers, leaning away. "It's getting late."

Percy bites her lip, looking as if she would like to protest, but she nods. Red helps her up and tries not to cringe when Percy doesn't let go of her hand.

* * *

When they get back to the Red Castle, Percy says, "Would you like me to come with you tomorrow?" and the hope laced through each word makes Red cringe. She pulls her hand out of Percy's, grateful for the excuse that living in different wings of the castle provides.

"Maybe," she says.

Percy winces and Red can see her gnawing the inside of her cheek. The last lingering traces of warmth vanish like a candle being snuffed out, leaving her feeling worse than before. "Okay," Percy says.

Red mumbles a goodbye and scrambles for the upside-down staircase that leads to her quarters. She locks herself in her room and meets her reflection in the mirror that hangs opposite the door. Her skin is the color of porridge, her hair rumpled where Percy ran her hands through it, and she runs her hands over her cheeks, wondering if this is what she really looks like.

She tries to touch her reflection, to see if those cheekbones feel the same as hers, but all she accomplishes is smudging fingerprints along the glass. The smears blur her features, making her look softer and more alien. More, perhaps, like the person she fooled Percy into believing her to be.

Her body jerks away from the mirror of its own accord and she sprawls on the bed, digging her palms into her eyes until she sees gaps like the ones that appeared when she picked up the Red King's sword, blue-black holes through which the right version of her lurks. "Leave me _alone_," she pleads, knowing very well that it will do nothing to stop the onslaught. She isn't real enough to defend herself.

* * *

The next morning, someone knocks and Red buries her head in her arms because she can't answer. Only one person ever seeks her out, and the thought of seeing her after yesterday makes Red's intestines turn inside-out. "Red?" Percy's voice comes through the door a moment after the knock. "Is everything okay? You're missing breakfast."

Red worms deeper under her blankets, wanting nothing more than to disappear completely and never have been. At least that way none of this would have happened and no one would get hurt because of her.

"I—I— whatever I did to upset you this much, Red, I'm sorry," Percy says. "If you were wrong and you decided you don't want me after all, that's okay. I won't be angry, I promise. I just want to know so I can—" She chokes on the word and then says nothing for so long that Red begins to wonder if she's left. "I like you a lot, that's all. I want you to be okay."

The sound is so like breaking glass that Red is shocked it could come from her, and she's not sure if it caused the tears suddenly swimming beneath her eyelids or if it was the other way around.

"Please answer me," Percy whispers, barely audible through the door.

"I don't know how," Red breathes, too soft for Percy to hear. After a while footsteps retreat from the door and Red struggles out from the sheets that are trying to devour her. She has a sword to find.

* * *

Red catches a flash of Percy's hurt look out of the corner of her eye when she leaves, but she has a horse and Percy doesn't. Soon she has left the Red Castle behind for the Forest of Names; the Tea Company shop and the Red King's square remain the only places she has not already searched for the Vorpal Sword.

She has no desire to revisit the Red King nor go anywhere near his sword again, so she rides to the shop. The hinges creak when she pushes the door open and Red keeps an eye out for hair the color of her own, but all she sees is empty shelves and a sheep sitting behind the counter with a tangled mass of yarn in her lap.

"What is it you want to buy?" the sheep asks at last, peering at Red through a pair of thick spectacles.

"I'm not really sure," Red lies while she tries to examine the shelves surreptitiously. They're bare and blanketed by dust. "I'll know it when I see it." It would be hard to mistake a sword even if the shop did have actual wares.

"Hm," the sheep says. Her needles clack together for a moment. "You might speak to my associate downstairs." She points with the needles toward a small trapdoor in the center of the floor; when Red opens it, she sees a rickety ladder sinking into the darkness below. "Edwina manages the inventory," the sheep adds with a helpful bleat.

Red descends. The tiny room below is dimly lit, but as her eyes adjust she sees a red-headed woman who must be Edwina flipping through a ledger and making notes here and there. Beyond her, there's a door with two large faces carved onto it. One is beaming while the other weeps, and Red stares at it in fascination. As she watches, the happy one slowly slumps into despair while its twin stops crying and grins slowly.

"Can I help you?" Edwina asks, and Red yanks her gaze away from the door.

"I—I'm looking for the Vorpal Sword," Red says.

Edwina indicates the door with her pen. "He keeps it in there," she says. "If you can get him to open the door, I'm sure he'll be willing to discuss an exchange with you."

"He?"

"A certain gentlemen," Edwina says, shrugging. "A Wonderlander originally, I believe. He looks after things and people who cannot otherwise guard themselves from harm."

"How does he decide who to protect?" Red asks. Her voice clogs her throat, and she coughs nervously.

"They ask, as I understand it," Edwina says. "Perhaps he'll let you stay for a while and then you won't have to go chasing the Jabberwock." She reaches across the desk to touch Red's wrist gently. "Good luck."

Red squeezes past her to try the handle; it won't budge, and the faces, halfway through their transition, appear to smirk at her in tandem. "How do I get through the door?"

"Only you can find your own way in," Edwina says. "That's how it works."

The door is warm to the touch, and it vibrates when Red presses her palm against it. She imagines she can hear footsteps approaching, and then the door gives way a fraction of an inch. Through the gap, she can see a sliver of a man's brown eyes and what might be a faint, sad smile.

"I wondered when I would see you here," he says.

Red blinks. "You know who I am?"

"And I know why you're here," he says. "I must ask you to wait outside while I fetch it for you. It would be dangerous otherwise." The door snaps shut less than an inch from her nose, and she crumbles away or the ground buckles beneath her feet to leave her adrift.

"Would you like to sit down while you wait?" Edwina asks. The sympathy in her voice makes Red's skin crawl, but she mutters acceptance because her knees feel like they've been replaced with cotton.

Edwina vacates her chair and pushes it toward Red, who sits down numbly while Edwina settles against the desk and continues flicking through her ledger. "I'm sure he has a very good reason for not letting you in," Edwina says.

"He didn't even let me _ask_," Red whispers. Edwina is right, though, she's certain. Somehow he sensed that she is too misplaced to be worth protecting. She stares at the floor while Edwina works.

"Your name isn't Red, by chance, is it?" Edwina asks after a while. Red nods without looking up. "My son told me about you. Most of the chessmen won't give him the time of day, he's so young. So he was very pleased that you talked to him for so long."

"He mentioned you," Red says flatly.

Edwina doesn't answer, and Red counts her heartbeats to fill the silence. She gets to one hundred and thirty-two before the door opens just far enough for the man behind it to hold out a sword. She takes it; the hilt is cold and smooth as glass, and as her fingers close around it she hears a flutter of something like distant bells. "I thought maybe—" she begins, but the door clicks shut again and this time, she hears a bolt slide home.

"I'm sorry," the man says, his voice muffled by the door. "But this is better for everyone."

Her eyelids prickle, and she blinks furiously until the sensation fades.

"I'm sorry," Edwina says. She tries to touch Red's shoulder, but Red shrugs her off, drawing the Vorpal Sword closer to her. It weighs far less than Percy, but it grounds her much better and, unlike Percy, it can't be hurt.

* * *

The Red King's Sword hummed, but the Vorpal Sword sings. She sits on the bank of the Wabe and holds the sword in her lap, running her fingers over the strange, dark lines in the metal. Now and then she tilts it to admire the way it gleams green in the sunlight.

When she closes her eyes, the song fills her head and her pulse slows to match the beat. She tastes copper and something like eggs, and her stomach aches from emptiness. The melody soars, high and pure like the horn that begins each game. Her hand, tight around the hilt, begins to ache, but she never wants to let go.

She opens her eyes and traces the edge of the blade with her thumb. Little rivulets of her own blood blossom over the metal, pulling sour notes out of the harmonics echoing around in her head. Her heart beats out of time, and there is loss and need and anguish out of nowhere, a branding iron forced through her thoughts and she wishes more than anything to know _why._

Red wraps the Vorpal Sword in emptied saddlebags until it is unrecognizable, and when she returns to the castle, no one questions the bundle of burlap and leather tucked under her arm. Safe in her room, she lets the blade roll out of its bindings and lay on her bed, glistening in the lamplight. Its song, muffled before by the cloth, starts anew and sends chills cascading down her spine.

Someone knocks, timidly. Red twitches her blankets to cover the sword and and waits. "Is everything okay, Red?" It's Percy, of course, and Red's mouth is suddenly too dry to answer. But she knows how it feels to stare at a door that is certain never to budge, so she goes to open the door.

Relief seeps into Percy's face. "I tried to catch you before the game," she says.

"I know," Red whispers. Percy's smile fades. "I'm sorry, I was wrong about myself. Again." Percy cringes and Red fights the urge to add,"This is your fault. If you hadn't cared none of this would have happened." She has done enough damage already.

"Okay." For a moment, Percy seems to crumple in on herself the way Red does whenever the world becomes too heavy, but Percy is evidently stronger because she stays standing without assistance. "Thank you for telling me," she murmurs. "Are we still friends?"

"If you want to be," Red says, surprised.

"Of course I want to be," Percy says. "You're my best friend."

A friend of any kind wouldn't have let her believe it was anything more than a need for warmth, but Red is selfish enough not to correct her. "Oh."

Percy reaches to squeeze her shoulder in a gesture that must be intended for comfort, but all it accomplishes is making Red's insides writhe uncomfortably. "I'll leave you alone now, if you want," Percy says. "I'm glad you're not mad at me."

"Of course not," Red breathes, but it's too late because Percy is already gone, with nothing but a final, fleeting smile over her shoulder as she goes.

Red closes the door and the symphony of the Vorpal Sword crashes in around her once more.


	15. Glassland: Immolation

**Immolation**

Red hides the sword beneath her bed, sometimes pulling it out to listen with her eyes closed until the song reverberates in her bones so she can hardly stand. On these nights, she wonders why she bothers keeping the sword when she has no intention of slaying the Jabberwock and after the first day has never been able to bring herself to sully the song with her own blood.

The song wakes her up, most nights, and it seems she can no longer smother it by wrapping the sword in fabric. Lack of sleep tightens a vice around her head, and it squeezes harder and harder with every passing day. There is one person she can think of who might help her, and she hurries to his door even though it's the middle of the night.

The Kingside Bishop looks confused to see her, but she puts on her sweetest smile and leans forward enough to ensure he can't shut the door in her face. "You know a lot about the Glassland's history, don't you?" she asks, taking care to smother her real voice with honey.

It works, and the Bishop looks flattered rather than irritated by her sudden appearance "I'm the leading expert in the field," he says proudly, throwing back his shoulders and beaming at her.

Red struggles to look appropriately awed. "You must know so much about the Vorpal Sword. I would so like to learn, if you're willing to teach me."

He's pleased enough by her interest to invite her in, and she perches on the edge of his desk while he settles onto the edge of the bed. "What would you like to know?"

"How was it forged?"

"Ah." He taps the side of his nose conspiratorially. "That is one of the most well-guarded secrets of the Glassland." He lowers his voice and she leans forward to hear him. "The Jabberwock is a shadow of the First Alice's departure, you see. A monster she left behind after her visit here. As such, it can only be hurt by metals from Up There." He points straight up at the ceiling. "The world where Alice came from. The White Chessmen made an expedition to the world above and returned with resources enough to forge a sword, intending to slay the beast."

"But it's still alive," Red says.

The Bishop shrugged. "The sword's very existence had a curious effect on the Jabberwock. No sooner had it been forged than the beast took flight and left the board completely, wailing as if in pain. No one knows why. Some have ventured past the wall to attempt to finish the job, but the Jabberwock poisons them from afar with its breath or shatters their bones with a scream, and none have ever succeeded. It seems disinclined to venture too near the Vorpal Sword, however, so the Glassland remains safe."

"And know one knows why?" Red asks. "There must be some theories."

"Perhaps it knows the dangers the sword poses to it," the Bishop suggests. "There are signs to indicate its intelligence. It was known to trap people and toy with them for days in the time before the sword was forged." He tilts his head to one side, examining her closely. "Why do you want to know? Not hoping to slay it, I hope. It's far too dangerous."

"No, nothing like that," Red says. She imagines she can hear the sword echoing through the castle stones, and it occurs to her for the first time how sharp the sound can be. "Thank you for sharing with me," she says, getting to her feet. The Bishop does too and offers her a sweeping bow.

"The pleasure was mine," he says. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"There might be," Red says. She knows that Percy could fix her head, but after what happened last time she is hesitant to try and perhaps the bishop could be an acceptable substitute. She shuffles closer while he waits for her to say what she wants. "I get lonely, sometimes," she says, and he melts with sympathy.

"I'm not sure how I can help with that, but I'd be happy to try," he says.

His breathing cracks audibly when she touches his shoulder and skims her fingers across his clavicle. "I have a few ideas," she says, and he must not notice how false her voice is becoming because he does nothing to stop her when she circles her fingers around his neck and digs her nails into his spine until he bends close enough for their lips to meet.

The bands around her skull rust away flake by flake, oxidized by his breath mingling with hers and scrubbed away by his thumb tracing over her jaw.

* * *

The Bishop brings her a rose over breakfast, and she's startled enough to accept it. He beams stupidly at her when she takes it and then dashes away like a nervous child. All the thorns have been cut from the stem, leaving the rose smooth from end to end and pitifully useless.

"That was sweet of him," Percy says, next to her, her voice tight.

"Eviscerating a flower doesn't seem very sweet to me," Red mutters.

Percy shrugs. "The rosebushes will cooperate if you ask nicely," she says. Red lays the rose between them and Percy stares at it, her jaw working even though Red is certain she's already swallowed the last of her toast. "So are you two…?"

"No," Red says. "I made that clear last night; it's not my fault if he didn't listen."

"Are you sure?" Percy whispers.

"Oh," Red says, with a rush of understanding. "No, it wasn't like you and I." It's so close to mere technical truth that she can't bring herself to meet Percy's eyes, half-afraid that the hurt she'd see there would drill straight through her and leave her wide open to infection. "I told you I was sorry," she adds weakly. "It's more than he'll get."

Percy doesn't seem quite satisfied, but she makes no further argument and allows Red to finish the rest of her breakfast in silence. Her fried borogove tastes like ash.

* * *

For once she doesn't bother with the proper progression of squares, two forward and one across like she's supposed to, just rides straight to the Forest of Names and barely slows down until she is in the Tweedles' clearing. "If you had a choice between hurting yourself or hurting someone else, what would you pick?" she asks, and they blink at her in unison.

"You can't have both," Dum says at last.

"But you can have neither," Dee adds.

"I know that," Red snarls, and they both cringe into each other. "I need to know which one is better."

"Yourself, it might be," Dee says doubtfully. "If it comes to that."

"Which it mightn't, nohow," Dum adds with a hopeful expression.

The pressure that the Bishop scraped away last night returns in full force, all in one rush, and she sags in the saddle. "You helped me when I was dying," she says, hating how like a child she sounds. "Why won't you help me now?"

The Tweedles share a long glance, and then both of them shrug. "We can't," Dee says.

"Not anymore, nohow."

She tugs on the reins and the horse wheels around, snorting in protest when Red digs her spurs in with far more force than is necessary. Her eyes burn, but by the time she reaches the outskirts of the forest they are dry again and the sensation has moved to her stomach, where it turns to sticky pus and begins to fester.

Red scrambles through her saddlebag until she finds the box of matches. She fumbles the first two, snarling when they snap out of her fingers without lighting, but the third flares with the reek of sulfur and she plants it at the base of the nearest tree. Greenish tongues of flame lick at her hands before pouring over the roots and the masses of dry, dead leaves coating the ground.

She retreats to her horse and they flee the fire together.

* * *

By the time she reaches the top of Lookout Point, most of the forest is aflame and thick, greasy smoke billows out across the squares like spilled ink. In patches the wind clears it enough that she can see the inhabitants of the forest streaming out of it, little lines of tiny figures whose fearful shouting flies to her on the wind. Red closes her eyes to listen.

It is a different kind of comfort than what she found for herself last night, but the screams worms their way through her ears and eat away the headache from the inside. When she can see again, a thin ribbon of red winds from the direction of the Looking Glass and another thread of white approaches from the opposite side.

She watches idly while the chessmen pull water from the ditches and try to drown the wildfire; they might as well be crying over a bonfire for all the good it does. The flames mount higher, and the heat drives the impromptu fire brigades back.

"Red." It's Percy's voice, and Red turns slowly. Percy is a few feet away, bent over and panting, having clearly just climbed the hill at top speed. "What did you do?" Percy wheezes when she's got her breathing mostly under control.

"No one," Red says, her voice sounding hollow in her ears, "no one will _listen _to me."

"I listen to you," Percy says desperately, scrambling closer. Red jerks back when Percy reaches for her. "I want to help you, but I don't know how, and—oh, Red, _why_? Why would you do that?"

She looks more betrayed than Red has ever seen her before, and the familiar pall of guilt settles around Red's shoulders. "I had to do something. It— I— Nothing _helps_." Her voice cracks from the smoke now wafting up to them. "But if I stop fighting back it's going to kill me. Sooner. It's going to kill me sooner, I meant." She scrubs her hands over her face, and it's not until Percy cries out and yanks her wrists away so she can see the blood gathering under her nails that she realizes she's sliced away pieces of skin from her forehead.

She tears herself out of Percy's grip and huddles around her hands, rubbing the blood from her face with her sleeve. "Don't touch me!" she screams when Percy tries to help.

"Red—" Percy slumps to the ground herself, still dangerously close. She stretches her hands even closer, and Red skitters away, kicking up sand between them in panic. "Every night for two years I've been afraid you'll leave and then not come back," Percy whispers. "Do you have any idea what that's like? What it's like to care so much about you when you won't—even—even take care of yourself? And now—_this?_" She jerks one arm in the direction of the fire.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Red says and keeps saying. If she repeats it enough times, maybe it'll feel like more than empty words.

"I don't want you to be sorry." Percy lunges forward, faster than Red can get away, and pins her to the sand by her shoulders. "I want you to get _better_."

"I don't know how!" She doesn't struggle but tries to dig herself into the sand with her shoulder blades, and then breathes again when Percy lets her go. "I don't know anything."

"Try," Percy says in almost a whimper. "Try for me if you won't try for yourself."

Red says nothing.

* * *

The forest burns to the ground, and Red joins the trickle of singed chessmen heading back to the castle. Percy leads the horse, some distance behind her, so Red can focus on not dripping on anybody. The kingside bishop joins them, and she shies away when he tries to touch the cuts over her eyebrows. "It stings," she offers in explanation.

"What happened?"

"I was in the forest when it started," she says shortly.

"Is there anything I can do?"

She can't keep looking at the softness in his eyes, so she stares straight ahead. "No."

When they get back and she opens the door to her room, the Vorpal Sword's song hits her like a tidal wave. Her knees buckle, and she dangles from the doorknob for a few precious seconds before collapsing the rest of the way. She hears metal clattering on metal and distant, guttural roars while her vision floods with green fire and the flash of steel.

Red drags herself forward by her fingernails and pulls the sword from under her bed. It is swathed in blankets and chain mail and everything else she could find, and she peels back the layers one by one. The song becomes a tower built on the fragile foundation of her mind, swaying in the wind of its own harmonies. She whimpers and keeps digging until she exposes the blade itself.

Something pops in the left side of her head, and the floor heaves beneath her while something warm and wet trickles down her jaw. The song blends together into one loud, clear note, the same pitch as a bandersnatch's cry.

She screams to match and squeezes the blade to silence it like she did the bandersnatch so long ago. Her palms split open and she smears the blood over the blade, snarling. The sword glows orange; the song ends with a chorus of shrieks that might be her own.

When the holes in her eyes close again, the Vorpal Sword is a twisted husk of a hilt with a few blackened inches of metal protruding from the end; the rest is ash. Her hands, curiously, do not seem to be burnt, although they are caked with thick scabs and pieces of burnt fabric.

She tries to stand and the floor spins fast enough to yank her feet from under her, so she crawls to the bath instead. The tub takes too long to fill, but by the time she's levered herself into it, it's nearly finished, and the water is hot enough to scald. She sinks beneath the surface and lets it draw the blood away.

It is, of course, Percy who finds her. Red protests feebly as Percy drags her out of the water, but her blood seems diluted enough to be safe. They walk down to the hospital wing together, although Red slumps over and lets Percy do most of the work.

"I did try," she mumbles. "I did try, I promise." The Vorpal Sword, at least, can't hurt her again. Her legs give out completely, and Percy slips an arm beneath her knees and carries her the rest of the way without a word.


	16. Glassland: Paroxysm

**Paroxysm**

The Queenside Rook is a fool. Red catches him staring at her across the ditch separating his square from hers while they wait for the horn to signal the beginning of her first game since the Queen's medics deemed her sufficiently healed. Her smile is as sharp as a bandersnatch's screech, but instead of shying away he returns it with a much sloppier one of his own.

When the horn sounds, he sets off for where the Forest of Names used to be at top speed and Red follows at a more leisurely pace. It takes her about half an hour to reach him, and she doesn't bother to hide her smirk when she seems him fidgeting anxiously with his cap on the outskirts of the burn zone, his tower not far off. While she watches, he kicks once or twice at a slender trunk of new growth.

"I thought you might not—" he begins when he sees her at last.

"Yes, yes," she says irritably, letting the horse's reins slide to the ground so she can graze while she waits. "Why did you want to meet me here?" His answer was written all over his face when he asked her this morning over breakfast, and it's the same one she's heard countless times since figuring out how to make them do this. She wants to hear it anyway.

He starts with an awkward, "Well," which accomplishes nothing but prolonging his nerves and the gnawing sensation around her diaphragm. Neither improves her estimation of his intelligence. "I think you're vey pretty," he says, the words jumbling together with haste. "And you might—or rather we might—that is, I thought perhaps—"

The creature chewing away in her midsection abruptly grows fangs, and Red covers her flinch by closing the distance between them and clamping a hand over his mouth. His eyes widen; she can feel him still trying to speak beneath her palm. "You talk too much," she tells him, then smiles approvingly when she lowers her hand and he stays silent.

She gives him a second or two to prove he's being obedient and not simply startled before she kisses him. She doesn't start off gently, instead snapping at his lip until she tastes blood and the stabbing pain in her ribs starts to ease. The rook tries to slide his hand through her hair, but she yanks his and bites again and he stops with a sound that might be pain or enjoyment or possibly both. It matters very little which it is, although it must be the latter because he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her as close as she will let him.

He leans away just enough to snag a breath of air and then wastes most of it whispering her name. The last traces of discomfort wither with the sound, and Red smiles; she can taste how poisonous the expression is even if he can't. She brings her hands to his chest and pushes him away, just firmly enough to be a clear dismissal. He goes unwillingly, as if he's forgotten how his knees work.

"Thank you," she says.

As she collects her horse's reins and mounts, he calls out, "Will I see you again soon?"

She quirks an eyebrow at him. "Of course. You see me everyday."

His hands flutter at the air in front of him, the air she occupied only a moment ago. "I mean like this."

"Maybe." His eyes dim with disappointment, but she can't feel guilty. He brought this upon himself by asking in the first place.

She brushes her heels against the horse's sides, and they trot past the rook and into the field of blackened wood broken by fresh green. Red doesn't bother to see how long he watches after her.

* * *

Red hunts along the wall until she finds the tiny door that serves as the only exit. It's too small for the horse, so she pulls the twisted remains of the Vorpal Sword out of the saddlebag and goes through alone. Her shoulders take some wriggling, but by her hips she's gotten the trick of it and she slides the rest of the way off the board easily enough.

Ahead of her are the mountains, chopped into broken patterns of white and darkness by snow. The grey scree begins a few feet away from the wall, and she plants her feet at the very edge of it. "I know you're there," she calls, and the mountains rumble ominously with a sound too threatening to be thunder. "And I know you know what this is." She tosses the useless piece of metal onto the rocks before her. "The rest is gone. I destroyed it."

It lumbers out of the shadows, unfolding with a great creaking of joints and snapping of sinews as it rises to its full height. Even from this distance, she can see its white eyes shining in the sunlight, and the dark hole of its mouth spread wide. She shrinks into herself but holds her ground. "You can kill me now if you want," she says quickly, because she can feel her death rushing toward her on a wave of poisonous breath. "But if you don't, I think we could help each other."

The low, painful growl tapers off, and the Jabberwock descends the scree in a series of strange hops and bounds. Bits of gravel and rock fly everywhere, and Red throws up her hands to shield her head. It lands with a clatter just beside her, and it lowers its head—almost as big as she is, big enough to crush her with a flick of its too-long neck—to her level. It blinks, slowly, once, and she can hear the _sluck-shlick_ of its eyelids swiping back and forth. "You're an anomaly just like me," she says. "The legends say you just appeared one day. So did I, seven years ago."

Very slowly, she reaches out to touch the scales around its mouth; they're glassy smooth in one direction, but as soon as she tries to pull back, they slice into her fingers like razorblades. Her blood drips over the scales like it's nothing more spectacular than water, and she smiles. "Neither of us _fit_ here. That's why that was forged." She nods toward the remains of the Vorpal Sword. "It's only a matter of time before they make something to force me back, too. But together we can get rid of them before they get rid of us."

One of its antennae flicks down and swipes across her cheek, her mouth, up the other side of her face, trailing a dizzying sequence of impressions (a young girl in a blue dress and a broken egg and hunger and fear and _please—_), and she sways dizzily, clinging to it—no, to _her_—to stay upright. "You agree?" she chokes out, and the Jabberwock makes a gurgling noise that Red knows, now, to be an affirmative.

She closes her eyes and lets the Jabberwock hold her up while she snuffles Red's hair, her breath hot and damp and smelling faintly of apples. The heat of it soothes her, better than a kiss. "We can't hurt each other," she whispers, relieved, and the Jabberwock burbles happily.

* * *

"Go slowly," she says, right before she goes back. "Savor it. You deserve that." The Jabberwock gives her a lift over the wall and she gets on her horse and they run, so relentlessly that the horse is slick with lather and wheezing hard when they get back to the castle. She ignores the questioning looks when she leaps off the horse and sprints into the castle.

Percy never travels without Red these days, so she isn't hard to find, scrubbing down spare shields in the armory. Red squeezes her arms too tightly when she pulls her away from the job, but there isn't time for gentleness. "We have to leave. The Jabberwock's on her way," she says, panting even though it was the horse and not she who ran across the board.

The color drains out of Percy's face until she's even paler than Red herself. "What?" She tries to wriggle out of Red's grip, but Red clamps harder and Percy stays. "We have to warn the others—and the Vorpal Sword—"

"It's gone, I killed it before it could kill me," Red says, and Percy turns even whiter. "Percy, there's no time, we have to go _now_—we can go through the Looking Glass—"

"Everyone else will die!" Percy screams, wrenching herself way. Red staggers after her, unbalanced by the loss.

"So will you if you stay here!"

The slap catches her by surprise and rebounds through her skull like a drumbeat. "You—you—" Percy's face contorts, her eyes nearly glowing with tears. "I trusted you," she whimpers. "I—and you—" She sways, and Red rushes to keep her from collapsing. Percy scrambles away, kicking out wildly so Red can't follow. "I thought we were _friends_!"

"I can't let you die." A noise like distant thunder splits the air; the Jabberwock has begun her advance. "_Please_, Percy, come with me."

"Get away from me," Percy spits, jerking away from Red's outstretched hand. "I'm evacuating with everyone else or not at all." She recovers herself enough to stride past Red, toward the door.

"Percy…"

"We tried, Red," Percy says pleadingly. "We did everything we could to help you, and—and this—" Her voice snaps like brittle bone. "How could you?"

"I had to," Red murmurs. "Nothing else worked."

Something breaks behind Percy's eyes, and she flees without another sound.

* * *

Red doesn't walk out of the castle; instead, the stones glide languidly by beneath her feet. The growing tide of panic that Percy started boils and splits around her, so she makes her exit in a bubble that does nothing but hum almost pleasantly against her skin.

The Jabberwock roars, closer than before, centuries of abandonment ricocheting through the air. It ripples past Red like a breeze and then smashes the stones above the main entrance, raining rubble onto someone unlucky enough to be underneath. It isn't Percy, Percy who is undoubtedly going to keep her word and die with the rest of them.

Some sickly animal takes root in her heart, crawls into the atria and rots there. Red picks her way to the Looking Glass House, where the flower beds are uncharacteristically silent. She leans on the wall, looking out. The Glassland stretches out before her, shattered and half-obscured by noxious smog, a husk just like the Vorpal Sword.

The thing tugging at the corners of her mouth feels like a smile, but when she looks up to the storm of the Looking Glass overhead and catches a flash of her reflection, it looks more like the kind of grin a skull would wear. The decay spreads out of her heart and starts moldering away in her lungs.

She closes her eyes and waits for it to cease or spread far enough to poison her, and the sound of shattering stone becomes her entire reality.

* * *

The House is maintained by a patchy old Hare who introduces himself as Thackery. He escorts her into the house, muttering how lucky she is to have escaped. "The Looking Glass will keep it away. It's too big, you see, to fit underneath without being flipped inside out." Red winces at the thought. "There will be others," he adds, pouring her a cup of lemonade that she cannot taste. "There must be others. You can't be the only survivor."

He's wrong, she knows this, but she sits at a window facing the flowerbeds and searches for Percy even though it's hopeless. After two days, a handful of others straggle in to tell their story. They escaped the destruction by sheer luck, having been in the former Forest of Names when the Jabberwock first appeared and then making their way here through tove tunnels and the Manxsome Marsh. Edwina is among them, her son in tow. Jack stares at nothing with glassy eyes; Red envies him his detachment.

By the end of the week, it's clear that no one else is coming. Red ventures out of the House early one morning while everyone is still asleep, and the Jabberwock flies down to meet her with a happy gurgle. She waddles after Red while she picks her way through the rubble of the Red Castle, but the bodies are unrecognizable and she doesn't have time for a proper search anyway.

"We can't stay here," Red whispers over dinner that night. She can't, at least, not with the crumbled remnants of the Red Castle just across the garden wall, not with Percy's corpse in there somewhere, smashed like an insect beneath a piece of wall or shredded from within by venomous air.

"There's always Wonderland," Thackery says. "I can send you through the Looking Glass tomorrow."

"Yes," Edwina says, as shaky as Red feels. "I think that would be best." She threads her fingers through Jack's hair, which does nothing to make him pick up his fork. "I have friends in the Tea Party." Her gaze turns to Red and fills with pity. "You can come with us, of course."

Red nods and forces herself to say "Thank you" around a throat that feels like cotton.


	17. Hatter: Prologue, 1990

**Part Three: Hatter**

**Prologue, 1990**

She floats down from the earth like a feather shed from a passing bird, clutching her journal to her chest. The trees stretch up to embrace her before she lands, and offer their branches for her to climb down.

The places in her chest where she used to be Alice ache, and even though she knows why Alice cut her away she's frightened enough to be angry. The trees are more forbidding now that she is on the ground and she quickly gets lost.

She comes to a little shop, and the sheep who owns it is kind enough to give her a cup of hot chocolate before taking her down to the sanctuary in the basement. The door is a puzzle that she solves with a riddle she copied down in her journal, and inside there are others like her. She's given a room and an endless supply of pens and notebooks, and knows she'll be safe.

When she feels the other, she wants to go out and find her, but the man who runs the sanctum says it will be too dangerous. "You're the childhood," he explains kindly. "She's the death of it. If you meet it could cause a paradox."

Outside the sanctum, the other will grow up while she does not, and she fills whole notebooks wondering what would happen if their positions were reversed.


	18. Hatter: Asylum

**Asylum**

Morris is the first to hear of what happened in the Glassland. Mad Thackery's letter is perfunctory and clinical, but the shakiness of the handwriting betrays the despair behind it. _The Jabberwock attacked. There are four survivors. Edwina and her son are among them. I am sending them to you tomorrow_.

He sends word to Frances, who can contact the White Rabbit more surreptitiously than he is able to, and the three of them meet on the outskirts of Wonderland in the predawn. It is Frances who finds the Looking Glass, tucked into a curve in the cliffside as if it's trying to hide. They wait for the refugees to come through, huddled close together for warmth.

Edwina is the first, with her arm wrapped around the shoulders of a boy who must be Jack. The sheep who runs the Tea Company follows close behind them, but there's no sign of the fourth survivor that Mad Thackery mentioned. The seconds tick by while they wait for the last arrival. "It's been very hard for her," Edwina says after a full minute has passed. "We were in the company shop during the first strike; we saw everything from a distance. But she was right in the thick of it. It's a miracle she survived at all."

"I see something," the White Rabbit says urgently, not long after. "There!" He points at a dark, reddish ripple in the bottom corner of the Looking Glass. They wait with bated breath; the shape grows clearer and clearer until there's no doubt it's a person, and then she topples out of the Looking Glass, which seems reluctant to let go of her. Morris lunges forward to catch her before she can crack her head on the rocky ground. She's taller than he is but surprisingly light.

She shudders at his touch and shoves him away, making wet, ripping noises that shouldn't have been able to come out of a human throat. Morris lifts his hands, palms out in silent apology while she wraps her arms around herself and trembles. "It's all right," he tells her, pitching his voice low like he does when the Hatter has an attack of mercury. "You're safe now." She doesn't react except to dig her fingernails into her arms. "Can you tell me your name?"

"It's Red," Edwina says behind him. "She hardly talks to anyone."

Red shivers, but otherwise doesn't react. The White Rabbit clears his throat. "In light of your particular circumstances, we thought it best to get you out of Wonderland as quickly as possible," he says. Morris tears his eyes from Red to see Edwina nodding, her lips set in a grim line. "Of course our options are limited, but…"

"I understand," Edwina says. "Where are you sending us?"

"Aboveground," the White Rabbit says. "It's the safest place, unless you want to live underground forever." He taps the face of his watch. "I can send you back in time to before you came into being—" Out of the corner of his eye, Morris sees Red flinch as if struck. "—so even if Cora follows you up, she won't be able to find you with magic. The temporals just won't work."

"Thank you," Edwina says. The White Rabbit beckons for her to follow him, and the three of them edge along the cliffside, Jack dragging his feet and stumbling every few steps.

"Good luck, Jackie," Morris calls after him, and earns a sharp glare from Jack and a quiet snort of amusement from Edwina. Jack picks his feet up higher after that, and soon they're out of sight.

"I have relatives who I'll be staying with," the sheep says after a moment. "They live near the Pool of Tears."

"I can escort you as far as the Tea Party," Morris says, and the sheep murmurs her thanks.

Frances turns to Red, who still hasn't moved. "And what about you, dear?" she asks, even more gently than Morris could manage. "Do you have someone you can—"

"No," Red says, and Morris twitches as her voice superimposes itself over his entire field of vision. It's loops and whorls of violet, a vivid thumbprint gyring across his eyes, and the sheer intensity of it nearly bowls him over. He blinks the afterimage away just in time for Red to add, in an almost inaudible whisper, "Not anymore."

"Come to the Tea Party," Morris says. His voice is rough with surprise, and he clears his throat, his neck heating up when Frances cocks an eyebrow at him. "Someone will have room for you."

Red bows her head in what turns out to be a very slow nod, and he feels a pang of regret that she didn't speak again.

* * *

It is past noon by the time they reach the table. Frances goes on with the sheep, leaving Morris with Red, who sags into the tree and stares at her hands with glazed eyes as soon as they stop moving. She hasn't said a word since they left the Looking Glass behind, and Morris isn't sure how aware she is of her surroundings, but he tries anyway. "I'm going to set the table," he says. "Would you like to sit down?"

She raises her head and looks him in the eye for the first time. Hers are steel-blue beneath the feverish shine; the color is made more shocking than it ought to be by the contrast of her hair and the waxiness of her skin. She says nothing, but when he pulls one of the more comfortable chairs out from beneath the table, she wanders over and melts into it.

"I can get you some tea if you like," he says. "Or we have scones, crumpets, sponge cake, toast—or I can get you something more substantial from my house, if you'd prefer." Red gives no sign that she's heard him, merely continues to curl and uncurl her hands in her lap. "Anything you need. Just let me know."

Morris is careful not to brush against her by accident while he arranges the dishes to his satisfaction, but Red still tightens her shoulders whenever he draws near enough to touch her. It's not until he starts boiling water and the kettle whistles for the first time that she shows any interest in what he's doing.

"Does it hurt to drink?"

It takes him a few seconds to see anything but delicate coils of violet; the flood of color is dizzying. "Pardon?"

"Since it's so hot," Red whispers. "Does it hurt?"

"The idea is to let it cool enough first," Morris says.

"Oh." Red returns her attentions to her hands, but only for a few seconds. "I've never had tea before," she says, cringing. Even in apology, her voice is overpowering.

Morris makes the darjeeling first and pours for her when it's ready. "Try this, to start," he says, handing the cup to her and taking great care not to let their fingertips touch. "This way you'll understand the contradiction right from the beginning. Go on."

She curls both hands around the cup and lifts it to her mouth, inhaling the steam instead of drinking. Her lips tremble and suddenly she looks even more fragile than the cup. Morris offers her an encouraging smile as she takes the tiniest sip possible.

"Oh," she breathes when she's had time to taste the full range of flavor that darjeeling has to offer. Her mouth turns up at the corners; the faint curve holds the promise of something just beyond reach, like the first traces of steam from the spout of a kettle. He imagines he can see her sickly pallor receding. There are still a dozen pots to fill, but Morris slips into the chair beside her.

"How do you like it?" he asks.

Red drinks again before answering. "It's lovely," she whispers at last. "In a mocking sort of way." Her eyes flick toward the empty pots. "Do they all taste like this?"

"No. You'll have to sample them all. If you'd like to, of course."

Her face falls. "I'm not sure I should."

She looks so forlorn that, were she anyone else, he'd reach over and take her hand or touch her shoulder to remind her that she isn't alone. He tops off her tea instead. "There's plenty to go around," he says. "We're sitting on top of an entire warehouse full of nothing but tea."

"No, it isn't that," she says. "It's just that something so perfect should be saved for someone who—who isn't me."

"That's nonsense," he murmurs. "No one should be denied tea."

She sets the cup down and falls into herself, hunching over and pulling her knees up toward her chin. "But I haven't done anything to earn it."

Morris relaxes. This kind of thinking he knows how to deal with. "If that's the problem, you can stay afterwards and help me with the dishes. Even helping to stack them would be a tremendous help."

The faint smile reappears, more tremulous than before but still there. "If you think that's enough."

"Of course," Morris says.

She unfolds and picks up her cup again.

* * *

Red is a new face and of course the Partiers descend on her when they arrive. Morris watches anxiously for some sign that he should intervene to keep her from being too overwhelmed, but she seems to thrive on the attention. The color that started creeping back into her cheeks after her first taste of tea returns in full, making her look more like a person than a corpse.

When the last of them leaves the table at six o'clock sharp and the Hatter totters away to his own home, though, she curls into herself again, staring blankly into the dregs of her tea. "Did you enjoy yourself?" Morris asks, and she looks up at him with an odd, twisted expression.

"I liked it very much," she murmurs.

"That's wonderful," Morris says; it doesn't look as if she agrees with him, but she nods miserably and trails after him when he goes to pull the sink out of the tree. He kicks the base of it once or twice to make it stabilize, and rummages around in the cabinets until he finds a spare dishcloth. "That one's yours," he says, handing it to her, "and no one else's."

She takes it solemnly, with a reverence that doesn't match its faded stripes and fraying edges. "I don't really know how to use this," she says. "The only thing I've ever cleaned was armor."

"China's a lot more delicate, so be gentle," Morris says. "I'll wash for now while you dry. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it."

Red looks unconvinced. "What if I break something?"

Morris shrugs. "Then you break something." He holds out his hands so she can see the dozens of tiny dashes of scar tissue that cover his fingers. "I've done it more times than I can count, see?"

She brushes her finger feather-light over the the largest of the scars, a small starburst just beneath his right thumb where he smashed his first saucer. "Did this hurt?" she asks, sounding far more worried than she did the last time she asked the question.

"At first," Morris says. "Not so much after I got the pieces out. And since there's two of us, if you cut yourself that badly you can have a bit of jasmine while I patch it up. It dulls pain; you wouldn't feel a thing."

Red turns rather grey, her knuckles whitening momentarily around the dishcloth, but all she says is, "Okay."

She gathers up the silverware while he picks up the china, and when he hands her the first teacup to dry, she handles it with exaggerated care. It takes her four times as long to dry a single dish than it would Morris, but when she's done there's not a drop of water on it and by the time they finish she's nearly up to speed.

"I don't know your name," Red blurts out when they're done packing away the last crate of dishes. Right away she blushes, looking away and biting her lip, her hands curling into tight fists.

"It's Morris," he says.

She still doesn't look at him when she says, "Thank you, then, Morris." The muscles around her jaw work furiously and she seems to be waging war with herself for a moment. "Will you need my help again tomorrow?" she asks at length, managing to sound apologetic and hopeful at once.

"As long as you're willing to offer it," Morris says dryly. "You might not have noticed, but there are rather a lot of dishes." He's never minded doing them alone, but it's nice to have company for once.

* * *

He worries when it comes time to say goodbye, but Red assures him that she found a place to spend the night and that she doesn't need a guide to get there, so there's no reason to linger and he has Family business to attend to besides. Not long after nightfall, the White Rabbit knocks on his door to tell him that Edwina and Jack are safely Aboveground; Morris dutifully writes a note to Mad Thackery to inform him. He scribbles down a few notes for the next Family meeting and drafts a letter to the Glassland Tea Company's offshore locations to inquire as to whether they will still be operational in the future.

The rest of the night he spends mixing pigments, trying to replicate the exact shade of Red's voice. She may not stay long enough for him to memorize the shape of it, too, but if she leaves the Tea Party behind, at least he'll have the color.

Red is the first to arrive to the Tea Party the next day, and although she still looks pinched from grief, she offers a timid smile when she sees him. "Is it all right that I'm here so early?" she asks; her voice is less blue than Morris remembers it, so makes a mental note to adjust the paint blend accordingly.

"Of course," he says aloud, although technically it isn't. The Hatter rarely arrives on time these days, though, so it doesn't matter. "You could help me set the table, if you want," he adds. She nods and follows him to the cabinets. He hands her a stack of plates, which she handles with the care he would reserve for volatile explosives. "One per chair," he tells her. "Leave any extras in the middle. And—they're not _that _fragile, you know."

She keeps her gaze trained on the dishes while she circles the table. Morris leaves the kettle boiling on a hotplate and makes the rounds with the half dozen miss-matched sugar bowls. "You can't touch me if I break something and cut myself," she says as they pass and she gingerly places the left-over dishes in the center of the table.

"Why's that?"

The creaky noise that leaves her throat isn't quite a sigh, but that's the closest word he can find to describe it. "I—my blood," she says, twisting her fingers together until her joints crackle. "It's… poisonous."

Morris blinks, surprised. "What?"

With obvious effort, she lowers her hands, clutching at the hem of her shirt instead. "It dissolved a bandersnatch in a matter of minutes once. Insects don't even last a second."

"That's…" he scrambles for a word that won't seem rude, and comes up with a weak, "odd." Red winces. "Do you know why?" She shudders visibly but shakes her head. There must be a reasonable explanation, so he says, "Well, then, we'll just have to figure it out. And." He'd hate to give her false hope, but it might _not _be false and she looks as if she needs something to hope for. "If we can find out why, we might find a way to make it safer, so you won't have to worry."

Her smile is more solid this time.

* * *

A week after the destruction of the Glassland, the Family holds a meeting to which, unusually, only the elders and prominent members of the greater Wonderland society are invited. Morris attends, of course, as does the White Rabbit. Cornelius is already there to represent the Spades, and he offers Morris a curt nod when their eyes meet.

It takes some time for them all to assemble, even without the usual collection of interested but unimportant Family members cluttering the meeting chamber. The last to arrive is Mad Thackery, who keeps bumping into walls until the wiry jackrabbit who works as a butler for the Caucus crowd takes pity and finds him a chair.

"You are all aware of the devastation wrought by the Jabberwock in the Glassland some days ago," the eldest Hare says when they have settled. Mad Thackery twitches so badly that, were it not for the high armrests, he would have toppled right out of the chair. "Fortunately, the tove tunnels remain untouched, so we have been able to keep well-apprised of the situation through their cooperation." He flicks his ears in Mad Thackery's direction.

"Well, Dodgson's conservatory is still intact despite the Jabberwock's frequent efforts to the contrary," Mad Thackery says in a garbled mutter. "The bandersnatches seem to be holding their own. There is some evidence that there are more survivors trapped throughout the land."

"Some of the higher-ranking Spades not enlisted to Her Majesty's service have expressed interest in a series of rescue missions," Cornelius says. "I understand the Diamonds have recently developed an alloy they believe is strong enough to resist the force of the Jabberwock's cries." He raises an eyebrow at Ocho, who oversees the Diamond laboratories, and Ocho whistles shrilly in confirmation.

"It would be very risky, nonetheless," Mad Thackery says, yanking hard on one of his ears. "There is the matter of the beast's breath—"

"Better than letting innocent people die without even trying to help," Cornelius says mildly, although the edges of his voice are more ragged than usual and Morris can tell he's vexed.

"If samples of the Jabberwock's toxins could be obtained, we might be able to synthesize an antivenin," Ocho offers. "We can do it with Abovegrounders, in theory, after all."

The eldest Hare nods slowly. "Look into it," he says after a moment. "Now, there is the matter of the Queen's doppelgänger and son—"

"Safely integrated into the Aboveground," the White Rabbit says. "I sent them back a whole year before Edwina's first corporeal appearance, to be safe. Cora won't be able to find them without my help."

"Excellent," says the eldest Hare. "As to the other two refugees, I understand that Madam Sheep of the Tea Company is living with relatives and the former kingside Red Knight is residing with a member of the Tea Party for the time being?" All heads turn to Morris, who usually skulks at the back of the chamber for the purposes of a quick escape at the meeting's end.

"That's correct." He hesitates briefly, debating the wisdom of sharing what Red had told him about her blood and the smear of plum-colored slime that was all that remained of the deer fly that had bitten her after the last Tea Party. They could almost certainly help, provided they didn't panic and jump to unfortunate conclusions first. "She's adjusting well," he says after a few seconds of consideration. "Albeit slowly."

"Any word on how she survived?" Mad Thackery asks curiously. "She never offered any details on her escape from the Red Palace."

"None," Morris says, more curtly than he intends. "I haven't asked. She's still grieving, you know." If he keeps her trust, she'll tell him when she's ready, and that will be better for everyone.

* * *

They lay the groundwork of a plan to search the Glassland for survivors, a task which takes twice as long as it ought to because Mad Thackery keeps insisting that it is too dangerous. Morris privately agrees with him, but between Cornelius's refusal to budge and Ocho's unwavering faith in the Diamonds' latest technological advancements, the rest of the assemblage is ultimately won over. The plan has very little to do with him, excepting his agreement to shelter any refugees turned up by the rescue parties, and when the meeting adjourns Morris makes his exit with no small amount of relief.

He braces himself and buries his hands in his pockets before leaving the burrow, but the air, while crisp, has less bite than he expected, and the grass that ought to have frosted over hours ago makes no sound underfoot. With no need to flee from the cold, the run back to the table and home takes longer than usual.

A jagged loop of the dark pink rustle of cloth catches his eye as he jogs into the clearing where the table sits, and he locks his knees and tries not to breathe while he works out where it came from. He's almost convinced it was his imagination when it happens again, and this time, ready for it, he can see it comes from beneath the table.

When he lifts the tablecloth, he's less surprised than he should be to find Red huddled on the grass underneath. She cowers like she expects him to slap her, but all he feels is a sinking sort of resignation. "Have you been sleeping here every night?" he whispers. Red nods, her gaze still fixed firmly on her knees. "Why didn't you just ask? We could have found a real bed for you easily enough."

Red squirms and mumbles about not wanting to impose, but she takes his hand when he offers it and lets him guide her out from beneath the table. "It would be no trouble," Morris says. "Not for you."

"I was quite comfortable," Red murmurs.

"It's been unseasonably warm lately," he tells her. She winces and examines her fingers, laced together in front of her. "Besides, the Hatter needs a new apprentice. The old one had a nervous breakdown and had to retire." Her eyes flicker up toward him, and Morris smiles encouragingly. "The job comes with a bed and a workshop, if you're interested."

He holds his breath while she hesitates for too long. "I'd like that," she says at last.

"Then I'll speak with the Hatter after the Tea Party tomorrow," he says. "I'm sure he'll be delighted to have you." If he isn't, Morris will provoke him until the Protocol makes him forget. "In the meantime…" He _can't _just let her sleep outside. "Come inside, at least. I'll make you some tea and you can sleep on the couch if you get tired."

She protests that she isn't, but she follows him into the house without complaint and barely makes it through her first cup of rosebud tea before succumbing to sleep, curled up on the end of his couch. Morris eases the cup out of her grasp and hunts around until he finds a spare blanket to drape over her before going to bed himself.


	19. Hatter: Integration

**Integration**

It takes surprisingly little persuading on Morris's part to get the Hatter to accept a new apprentice; perhaps he has realized at last what it means that his vision is failing and his hands shake too badly for needlework. Red will not get much in the way of useful instruction, but at least she'll have somewhere warm and dry to spend the nights.

Morris signs for a shipment of pelts and delivers it himself to make sure she's all right. He finds her amidst ruined hats, the remains of a floppy brim in her hands. She doesn't notice him until he drops the crate; she twitches at the noise, spinning to stare at him with wide eyes.

"I—the Hatter asked me to—but I didn't know how hats work, so I—" Red holds the decimated brim before her like a shield or an offering. "The stitching wasn't very tight anyway," she adds meekly.

"I'm not surprised," Morris says while Red shrinks into herself. "Don't worry. I doubt he even remembers making that, and I certainly won't tell him." She straightens again, looking relieved. "Did you learn what you needed to, at least?"

"I think so," she says. "And I—the felt is nice, how it almost but doesn't quite snag." She traces the edge of the brim with her thumb with a fleeting smile. "Not unlike the tea."

"Good," he says, and can think of nothing else. He lingers long enough to make her eyes shutter before he shuffles in place and bids her a goodbye that sounds more like he's trying to cough.

He is nearly at the door when she calls after him. When he turns to look, she's closer than he expects. "Thank you," she says. "You've been much kinder to me than I deserve." When he tries to protest—how can she think herself unworthy of basic hospitality?—she holds out her hands in a wordless plea and he stumbles to silence. "I never do anything right, you see, and even when I learn what's been wrong and try to fix it, the fixing only makes things worse and hurts more and—" Red buries her face in the felt, her arms shaking with the force she uses to hold it there.

"Well." Morris shuffles over until he's close enough to give her shoulder a comforting squeeze, then thinks better of it and shoves his hands in his pockets instead. "We do things rather differently here," he says. "What was wrong in the Glassland might not be so bad here."

She laughs bitterly but at least looks at him. "That's a lovely sentiment," she whispers. "And for anyone else, it might be true." Her hair drops like a curtain, and when she looks at him again her face is smooth as porcelain.

"You're still welcome here," Morris says, a little nonplussed. "At the Tea Party, I mean. Whatever you think."

"Unconditionally?" she asks. Her voice breaks into shards, burning white along the edges.

"You can't get much more unconditional than someone whose blood melts things," Morris says.

Red manages the smallest of smiles. "Maybe."

"I think the Hatter hasn't destroyed his millinery library just yet," Morris says. "It's in his house and he never locks the door. The floor slants, so you'll find it if you just keep going up. And if the books aren't clear enough, I can put you in contact with any number of ex-apprentices who'll be able to explain it better." Red nods. "You're going to be fine," he says, and her smile widens fractionally.

"Thank you," she says.

He'd like to stay, or at least make sure she finds her way through the Hatter's house all right, but he has responsibilities outside of her. "I really should be going," he says, an apology that she excepts with a tiny, flickering nod.

* * *

Morris leaves the workshop behind and goes the long way around for his meeting with the White Rabbit, by tracking the meandering river's salt-crusted banks up from the sea instead of starting from the source. He passes an empty ring of footprints left over from the last Caucus Race—they never use the same site twice—and rolls up his shirtsleeves as he makes the climb to the Pool of Tears. Even so, the heat from the always-midday sun has a strength that is almost physical, and he longs for the more forgiving sunshine of the Tea Party.

He keeps his distance from the tower itself, opting instead to lounge in the meager shade of one of the sickly trees clinging to life on the edges of the scree. His cousin arrives a few minutes later; Morris sees the spiderwebs of his footsteps and doesn't look around before he says, "You're late."

"Forgive me if the Queen's in one of her _moods_ again," the Rabbit says, managing to cringe and pout at the same time. Morris rolls his eyes, but relents and moves over so that the Rabbit won't fry to death in the light.

"Is it 'again' if she never stops being in them?" Morris asks.

"It's all very well for you," the Rabbit snaps. "At least the Hatter doesn't threaten to chop off your head every five minutes." He shivers, and doesn't quite manage to throw off his perpetual cower.

Morris snorts. "He probably would if he _could_," he says flatly. "You wouldn't last a day at the Party."

The Rabbit harrumphs, but doesn't argue. Instead he says, "An assassin came to the palace yesterday."

"Unsuccessfully," Morris says. He'd have heard before now if Cora was dead, if only because the celebrations were certain to be exuberant.

"Of course." The Rabbit scratches his ear, frowning. "The assassin came from the same place the Queen did. She went back with him for a day to fake her death."

"What for?"

"Something about a curse," the Rabbit says. "But the temporal fluctuations were _awful_. The watch still hasn't calmed down, look." He holds it out; the numerals writhe across the face and the hands seem to point in all directions at once. Morris tears his eyes away, head spinning like the clock.

"How?" he asks when the world has settled again.

"The assassin had some kind of portal. We think it used to belong to that ex-portal jumper, since the Protocol seems to have recognized it. We haven't told him yet; the Queen came back alone and without the portal, so it seemed cruel to say anything to him."

Morris nods. They are silent for a while, watching the pool of tears draining from beneath the door that never opens. (It is his imagination, isn't it, that the flow is less steady than it was before?) Then the Rabbit says mournfully, "Do you think she'll ever come?"

"Pardon?"

"Alice, of course," the Rabbit says.

"Oh, yes. Her." Morris drags his gaze away from the water and focuses instead on his cousin, who is shrinking in on himself and appears even fluffier than usual. "Of course she will," he says, and the words sound empty, like something read from a textbook. "They always do."

The silence again, more prickly than before. "It's all going wrong, isn't it?" the Rabbit says.

"She'll be here," Morris says.

The Rabbit gnaws on his knuckles for a moment. "What if it's not Alice at all?" Morris raises his eyebrows, and the Rabbit elaborates. "What if it's the Protocol that's failing?" Around them, the air coagulates and they both freeze. Morris holds his breath, counting heartbeats.

"Don't be stupid," he says when the pressure begins to dissipate after forty-three. "It's working the same as always." Visions of Cora and headless griffins and the hollowness in Red's eyes spin behind his eyelids, but he doesn't dare give voice to any of them.

* * *

He takes his time coming back. It isn't quite dawdling, merely being more careful about what he does with his feet than usual while he sheds the lingering melancholy that pervades the air around the Pool of Tears. Even so, as four o'clock draws nearer, he can feel the Protocol eddying around his knees and quickens his steps until it relents.

Red is already in the clearing, tucked between two branches of the tree with one of the Hatter's books open in her lap. Some of his mood must show in his face, because her smile falters when she sees him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, really," Morris says. Her eyebrows curve skeptically. "Come down from there and help me set the table." She belongs to the Hatter's side of things now, though, so she is even less obligated to join him than before. "Only if you want to, of course," he adds, but she's already marked her place with a spare scrap of cloth and slid gracefully out of the tree.

"Of course I want to," she says. "Can I have a cup of tea before we start?" Her hands flit through the air, sporadic and aimless. "It might help me stay together long enough to be of any use."

Morris frowns. "Are you ill?" he asks, even as he reaches for the kettle and sets it to boiling.

"No," she says. "But sometimes I'm nothing but particles of dust waiting to fall apart at the slightest breeze. Look." She stretches her arms toward him, and he takes her hands tentatively. They're a little cooler than his and surprisingly soft, considering that she was a knight.

"You seem quite solid to me," he says. Her face crumples and she jerks her hands away, clutching instead at her own wrists, although why that should upset her so is beyond him. "I'm sorry," Morris says quickly. "I'll get you that tea."

He makes her black pomegranate, because if any tea has enough weight to hold someone together it's that one. She sits and sips and stares at nothing while he sets the table, and when he finishes he has to say her name four times before she responds. "Would you like to talk about it?" he asks.

Red examines the dregs of her tea for a while, and by then the first trickle of Partiers have arrived and he must attend to them before paying her any special attention. This Tea Party is busier than most, and the most he can manage is a comforting smile on the rare occasion that their eyes meet and as many cups of tea as she can drink.

Lately, he's been letting the Partiers linger for some time after six o'clock, but today he shoos them away as soon as the Hatter leaves. Red gathers the dishes with him without speaking. As he fills the sink, though, she says, "Tell me a story."

"What about?"

She thinks for a moment while he shrugs out of his coat and rolls up his sleeves. "Beginnings," she says at length.

"I know a lot of stories about beginnings," Morris tells her, "but none of them are very nice."

"Tell me one. Please?"

"Well." Morris picks up the nearest dish and begins to scrub gently; the bright yellow of splashing water makes it easier to begin. "Everything in Wonderland starts with an Alice. We are the remembrance of dreams long lost, and the dead long forgotten. Abovegrounders go elsewhere when they die, but Wonderland collects their dying breaths and makes them into someone new."

Red takes the cup when he hands it to her and dries it with utmost care. "That sounds nice," she says softly. "Remembering."

"But nothing is new here," Morris says. "Everything is only an echo of something that's already been." He is treading on dangerous ground again, his jaw aching from the Protocol's protest, but Red's eyes are deep enough to drown in and all that will keep him afloat is to keep talking. "All we have is the illusion of change. So we simmer, but never boil."

"But people should be remembered," Red murmurs, turning her dishcloth over in her hands while she waits for the next dish. "Otherwise there's nothing to say they existed at all."

"Perhaps."

They finish the dishes, a landscape of turquoise clinking and yellow splashes. "I didn't, for a long time," she says as they sort the cleaned china into crates.

"Didn't what?"

"Exist. Or remember. Both." Her smile trembles like the Hatter's hands. "I was born in a ditch, age fourteen. If I'd frozen there, no one would know I was at all." She looks at him without seeing. "Would it be better that way?"

"No! of course not," he says, but he's not certain she hears.

"I tried to fix it, later," she says, low and the color of the night sky. "I asked the Red King's sword to make them forget me and it couldn't."

"Red—"

"It would have been better, it would," she whispers, "I know it even if no one else does. I kept waiting for answers that didn't even exist and I can't stop looking even though I know better now, because I don't know how to stop, and the farther it goes the worse it gets—"

He shouts this time and shudders with relief when something resembling sanity returns to her eyes. "It's going to get better," he says, hoping desperately that it's the truth.

"I have to make a hat," she says. Her voice hangs in tatters, and he would tell her to stay until it's better if she weren't already backing away. "Thank you for the story."

* * *

Red shows no signs of getting better in the days that follow, and Morris, though determined not to be made a liar, can never seem to find the right words to help her. Whenever he gets a moment free, he prowls through the Family records, searching for some hint about the peculiar circumstances of Red's beginning, in hopes that an explanation would ease her fears. His search turns up nothing, however, and he is reduced to paltry misdirection.

"Have you ever danced before?" he asks her as they clear dishes one evening. She twitches as she always does when he addresses her suddenly.

"What?"

"It's a simple enough question, I think," he says lightly.

Her lips purse. "Why are you asking?"

Morris had thought that would be obvious. "Curiosity," he says. "Do knights even dance?"

Bringing up her past is dangerous, but this time she scowls instead of breaking. "I'm not a knight anymore," she snaps, then stares blankly at his hand when he offers it.

"Which renders it a moot point anyway," he says. "Come on, I'll teach you."

"Teach me?"

"Of course," he says, grinning too much when she hesitantly slips her hand into his and lets him pull her onto the table and over to a space that's clear of dishes except for a spare butter tray. "We'll start with the Lobster Quadrille, I think. It's simple enough and it's a staple across Wonderland instead of just here."

She hangs back a little, still skeptical. "Unless you've got a pair of lobsters and a beach hidden up your sleeves," she mutters.

"So you've got the basic idea already," Morris says happily. "Don't worry, we'll improvise." She moves close enough for him to guide her into the first position. Her eyes go out of focus when his hand brushes over her hip, but he squeezes her hand and she returns to him. "Relax. It'll be fun."

For all her usual grace, Red is an awkward dancer, her steps uncertain when she isn't tottering from a sudden inability to unlock her knees. With each mistake she cringes and mutters apologies, until she moves left instead of right and they rebound off of each other and he says, "_Relax_, Red. It wouldn't be half so interesting if it were perfect."

She giggles, and the unexpected burst of malachite pinwheels in his eyes almost unbalances him. They stutter to a halt, she holding him up or perhaps the other way around. The balance can't last for long, so they sit on the edge of the table instead. "You're beautiful, you know," he says, not sure whether he means her voice or simply her. Both.

The back of her neck turns pink and she leans away from him, frowning. "Do you think so?"

"You _are_," he says, letting her go with reluctance. "What I think has nothing to do with it."

She flicks a tiny pair of sugar tongs at him. "Don't be obtuse, Morris," she says.

He doesn't answer except to return the tongs to the sugar bowl, and they fall into comfortable and largely motionless silence. There are still some dishes that need to be done, but Morris can't quite bring himself to care. "So that's a yes, then?" he says after a while.

"What?"

"Knights do_, _in fact, dance," he says.

She rolls her eyes and then, to his surprise, flings an arm around his shoulders before saying, "Knights don't dance. But maybe _I _do."

"You must have been terribly out of place in the Glassland, then," he says, and regrets it immediately because her eyes dim.

"I didn't belong there," she says quietly. "I'm not sure I belong _anywhere_."

"You belong with the Tea Party," Morris tells her, and some of the light creeps back into her smile. "I knew it the minute you spoke. I can always tell if someone's going to stay, from their voices. The ones who leave have less color, but _you_—you're this incredible, vivid shade of violet, and it…" he trails off and traces his fingers through the air in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the way her voice spins. "It's hard to describe, but almost like a thumbprint, only the individual lines dance. You're too vibrant to not belong here with us."

"That sounds too perfect to be a part of me," Red says.

"Well, it's true."

"Maybe I'll make a hat of it," she says. "Once I'm better at hatting, anyway."

"If you did, you'd have to wear it," Morris says lazily. "It wouldn't look right on anyone else."

She arches an eyebrow at him. "I thought the Hatter was the only one who could wear hats to the Tea Party."

"As if he'd notice," Morris says, snorting. "Besides, everyone knows he won't last much longer; age and mercury have taken their toll." The Protocol has too, but it digs needles into his tongue when he flirts with the idea of mentioning it. Her eyes glitter and he struggles to keep breathing, but then she blinks and the moment passes.


	20. Hatter: Synergy

**Synergy**

He wakes up one morning without midday sun pouring through his window and the air cool and damp; when he pulls on his coat and ventures outside, he's met with golden light and shreds of mist, a proper morning of the sort that hasn't happened in years. Red is in the Hatter's chair, toying with a piece of yarn. She grins when she sees him.

"You're up early," Morris says.

"Actually, no," she says. "It doesn't count as getting up if you just didn't sleep, does it?"

"Oh," he says, unsure of how to respond to this.

"Oh, it was nothing bad," she says, uncrossing her legs and getting up to retrieve a hatbox from behind the tree. "But I was working, so I lost the threads of time and then it was morning and there didn't seem much point in going to sleep." She sets the hatbox on the table and removes the hat inside with a flourish. "I finished a hat!"

He accepts it gingerly when she hands it to him. It's black, at first, but when he tilts it the brushed felt catches the sunlight and gleams; in the light it's the color of tulgey wood, a dark, reddish brown. Red stares at him with shining eyes, and he can't respond with anything but, "It's beautiful. But I know you've made hats before…"

"This is the first one I've made alone," she says. "I plucked the pelt and carroted it myself and everything." She beams with pride. "I sewed on the hatband an hour ago, and then I was just thinking how awful it would be to wait until it was light out to show you when the sun came up."

Morris blinks; Wonderland is rarely so obliging. "Well, I think this calls for celebratory tea, don't you?" he says. "A ship came in from Rilchiam last night with a crate of coruse, if you'd like to try that."

"Please," Red says, returning the hat to its box and replacing the lid. "Why _is _the weather gradual like this?" she adds as Morris fills the first kettle of the day and deposits the Dormouse in his usual teapot.

"Wonderland is a kind of reservoir for Time," he says, more slowly than usual in case the Protocol decides to stop him. His airways remain clear, though, so he continues. "It trickles down from the Aboveground and gets stuck here. Sometimes, though, it overfills and spills over, and when that happens we get a day or two of time passing like it does Aboveground."

"It's nice," she says.

"Wait until tonight," Morris tells her. "You've never seen a Wonderland sunset before, have you?" She shakes her head. "There was one a few months after I became the March Hare. They're spectacular, you'll see."

"Can I watch it with you?" she asks, and immediately her cheeks turn pink.

"Of course," Morris says, pleased.

The kettle whistles and he hands her a tin from which to fill a pot while he deals with the water, and he can't help but think that she'd make a better Hatter than the real one. It seems to make her happy, too, and it gives her the excuse she needs to stay, so he tries not to feel guilty about the thought.

* * *

The Bellman's crew comes to the Tea Party that afternoon and drink most of the coruse that they delivered only a day before; Morris supposes they must develop a taste for it on their extended snark hunts on Rilchiam. Cyrus is with them, as always, a silent anchor with a perpetually half-full cup of earl grey who makes the rest of them seem less like forces of nature.

"The Caterpillar's moving to the mainland," Cyrus says. It's so rare that he volunteers any information without being asked first that it takes Morris longer than usual to process what he's heard.

"Why?"

Cyrus drains the rest of his earl grey and twirls the cup between his fingers. "He's worried," he says at length.

Morris sniffs, annoyed. "Has he finally realized that we're still waiting for Alice?"

"El Gato can't manage more than translucency of late," Cyrus murmurs. The pot containing earl grey floats by on the back of a small orange crab, who snaps his claws angrily when Cyrus commandeers the pot to pour himself more tea. "I suspect that is more likely the trouble."

"_What?_" But Cyrus can or will offer no more insight on the matter and Morris has other Partiers to attend to. He would have heard, surely, if something had gone so wrong with any Wonderlander, but then the Cheshire Cat never came to the Tea Party anyway and Morris supposes anything is possible…

He tries to push the speculation aside for the Partiers' sake, but it keeps encroaching at inconvenient moments and when it comes time to clean up, he does so mostly on autopilot. "Is something wrong?" Red asks as she stacks the last box of cutlery but one and Morris realizes he's been staring at a butter knife for far too long. He drops it and shoves the final box into the cabinet, which vanishes as soon as the door swings shut. "My brother came to the Party today," he says, because that's easier than his fears.

"Really? Who was he?" She fumbles the kettle she's filling and goes quiet until she finishes and settles it on a hotplate. The movements of her hands are hypnotic. "Why didn't you point him out?"

"He's with the Bellman's crew," Morris says in apology. "The tall, skinny one who drank earl grey."

Red chews her lip while she thinks. "The one who made you so distracted?"

"Surprising news from Rilchiam, that's all." Morris pinches a bit of hibiscus into two cups and they wait for the water to boil. "Things have been odd in Wonderland for almost ten years now, and it looks like it's getting worse than I thought." Red traces spirals in the dirt with her toes, and Morris can see her shoulders pulling together. "It started with the Queen, really. She's not from Wonderland originally and it—" The Protocol hisses in his ears. "it's been odd," he finishes lamely.

"Oh," she says.

Morris clears his throat. The kettle whistles, and Red gets to it before he can even react to the sound. She pours for them both and perches on the table beside him. "It's going to be soon," he says. "Just watch."

They are so still and close to each other that Morris can feel the changes in the air when she breathes, as quiet as jasmine and the palest of laurel-greens. The sunset begins with gold creeping across the western side of the sky and fades with startling speed to scarlet that streaks overhead like welts drawn by fingernails.

"Oh, it's perfect," Red whispers, staring upwards with rapt attention.

Her voice matches the place where the red bleeds into the darkening blue and he points to the spot, smiling. "That's the color of your voice," he says.

She tears her gaze from the sky for a second to glance at him skeptically. "Really?"

He laughs. "Of course."

She sighs, and her weight presses into his shoulder. "What does your voice look like?" she asks, so close to his ear that for a second he can see nothing but shades of purple.

"Like grey bark, and a little mahogany around the edges."

"That sounds pretty," she says. Morris shrugs; his is the dullest voice he's ever seen. "Morris?"

"Yes?"

She reaches over to twitch the end of a dreadlock. "Tell me what's wrong," she says. "You always help me when I'm upset, so it's only fair I do the same for you."

"It's just—There's nothing I can _do_," Morris says. "Things keep breaking and the only thing I can change is helping people accept it. They come here and get angry and drink tea, and then they leave feeling better and get rolled into the everyday and come back here when it gets to be too much." He scowls. "I'm part of the problem and…" he trails off; even the tea in his hand isn't enough to fix this. She slips her free hand into his, which might be.

"Maybe you're just thinking about it the wrong way," she says. "We—you could fight back instead of being a pacifier."

He's thought the same thing Dodgson-knows how often, but this is the first time the Protocol doesn't rear up to strangle him for it. "Maybe," he says. He spies the first star, nestled between the branches of the tree, and points, grateful for the excuse for a safer topic. "That's the mome star," he says. "Sailors on the fitful sea use it to navigate because it's the only star that doesn't move."

* * *

He says goodbye to Red when it gets too dark and cold for sitting on the table and drinking tea to be enjoyable, even with her, but he's been alone for barely half an hour when she shows up on his doorstep. "It's the Hatter," she says at his quizzical look. "He—I don't really know. But he kept asking for someone named Haigha and I thought you might know who—"

"He means me," Morris says quietly. "How sick is he?" The frightened look on Red's face would tell him even if the Hatter's misidentification hadn't, but a vicious, petty part of him wants to hear it spelled out.

"He looked awful," Red says. The note of hysteria shoots needles of silver through the loops of her voice.

Morris throws on his coat and hurries to the Hatter's house for her sake. At the door, he sends her back to her own room in the workshop. "He'll be all right," he says when she hesitates. "I'll take care of it, I promise."

She goes and he can stop pretending to care, which is a relief. The Hatter is just inside, slumped against the wall. Morris can smell blood and when he flicks on the lights he sees it smeared across the Hatter's chin, the same color as his groan of pain. "Don' wan' _you_," the Hatter growls, gesturing like he's trying to throw something.

"Haigha's been dead for nine years," Morris snaps. "I'm what you've got."

The Hatter flops further down the wall. A string of random vowels slurries out of his mouth like a very pale mudslide. Morris seizes him under the shoulders and drags him upright, scowling as the Hatter's legs wobble uselessly. He heaves him out of the entryway and across the kitchen to the bedroom, where he lets the Hatter topple onto the bed. A few words from the Hatter's rambling are coherent enough that he can pick them out—_bad_ features most often, and then _Haigha_—before he stomps into the kitchen to brew some jasmine.

Morris waits just long enough for the tea to not be scalding before bringing it to the Hatter, who's managed to roll so that he's face-up. The Hatter downs the tea in two huge gulps, coughs a bit, and then slumps back, his eyes glazing over already. Morris nudges him onto his side so he won't choke to death if he vomits before leaving.

He stops by the workshop on the way back, to make sure Red isn't too worried. "Is he better?" she asks when he knocks.

"He will be by tomorrow," Morris says. "I made him jasmine tea, so he's not in pain at least."

Red relaxes visibly, and Morris feels a twinge of guilt when he imagines what she'd say if she knew he hadn't bothered to be gentle. "What was wrong with him?" she asks.

"Mercury poisoning," Morris says. "All Hatters get it, even the ones who take adequate precautions or even forgo mercury nitrates entirely. It's—" he hesitates without thinking, ready for the Protocol to protest. It doesn't. "There's this thing called the Protocol," he blurts out, his heart clenching painfully in anticipation of a punishment that doesn't seem to be coming. "It's like a safety net keeping Wonderland from fraying apart and dying, only it doesn't let things change so all Hatters have mercury poisoning because the first one did. It rewrites people to fit, when it needs to."

"Oh," Red says, though Morris barely hears her over the colorless pounding of his heart and the blood roaring past his ears. "Is that why you haven't tried fighting before now?"

He nods, too afraid to say anything that might break this unexpected leniency. "It's better than not existing at all," he says.

"Maybe," she says, and he winces. "Well." She shakes herself visibly and offers Morris a weak smile. "I'm glad he's okay now."

"Yes," Morris says. His breathing comes more easily now. If the Protocol hasn't struck yet, it likely won't at all. "Let—let me know if something changes."

"I will," she says earnestly. "Goodnight, Morris."

"Goodnight." Morris smiles as he leaves.

* * *

It starts to rain as Morris walks back from the Hatter's workshop and continues throughout the night, so he goes out early the next morning to wring out the tablecloth and replace any cushions that are too soaked to be dry in time for today's Tea Party. There's a hole in the tablecloth the size of his fist in the corner by the Hatter's chair, so Morris hunts through his house until he finds a needle and thread and some extra scraps of cloth.

His needlework is nothing compared to a proper Hatter's, but it's a damn sight better than the current Hatter's would be even if he did notice and bother to fix the tear. Morris sits on the armrest with his feet on the Hatter's sodden cushion, knowing he'll leave dirty footprints but not caring particularly.

"Aren't needles the Hatter's job?" Violet swirls invade his vision and he barely avoids pricking himself with the needle. Red sidles around the chair, smiling.

"He can barely tell a crown from a brim at this point," Morris says. Red covers her mouth but doesn't quite manage to muffle her snigger. "Proper maintenance of anything is far outside his trembling grasp."

"But he's still the Hatter," Red says half-heartedly. The corners of her mouth twitch.

"In name only," Morris says, knotting the thread and examining his handiwork for a second. It looks fine, a splash of green against the white cloth, and he lets it fall back into position with a satisfied smile. "He can only string a coherent sentence together one time out of ten, lately," he continues. "It's only a matter of time before he's replaced." The Protocol hums, in agreement for once, and his smile turns into a smirk. "The quality of his hats have improved tremendously since you started working for him, I've noticed."

Red's cheeks go a brighter red than he's ever seen, but he can tell she's pleased. "I like hats almost as much as tea, that's all," she says.

"It was only an observation," Morris says, affecting idleness. "But I think you'd enjoy it, if it comes to that. I know I'd like having a friend to work with."

Her head snaps up from her examination of her sleeve, eyes wide. "Are we?" she whispers after a moment. "Friends?"

Morris bites his lip. "I don't know," he says. "I've never really…" Not for years, and maybe Franco was only ever a friendly competitor. "…never really had one before," he finishes. "But I _think_ so."

"I'd like to be," Red says breathlessly. "I—I've had friends but I've never been one before."

"What do you mean?"

The happiness vanishes from her eyes faster than the jasmine stole what was left of the Hatter's lucidity. "There were—back in the Glassland, I wasn't… good… for people," she mumbles. "And the ones who came closest were the ones who… And then…" She rocks side to side like a tree swaying in high winds. "It was my fault," she blurts out.

"What?"

"The Jabberwock," she says, choking on her tears. "I'm the one who destroyed the Vorpal Sword, because it was killing me and I—" She covers her face with her hands, twining her fingers through her hair and making a plum-colored bubble of sound. "It's my fault. But I _had _too, or—"

He's never done this before and he isn't sure how she'd react, but he can't sit by and watch her break apart without doing anything to fix it, so he curls his arms around her. She bends to press her forehead against his shoulder and doesn't sob so much as shake noiselessly. "It's okay, Red," he whispers.

"It isn't." Her fingers scrabble at his lapels, and her face is suddenly, frighteningly close to his. "I stood in the gardens and watched the Red Castle shatter while they were inside and I heard them screaming and I didn't do anything and, and even the one I tried to save wouldn't let me because she was better than I am." She crumples again, until Morris is the only thing holding her up. "Her name was Percy," she says after a while, muffled against his coat.

There's nothing he can think of to say that won't sound callous, so he keeps holding her and strokes her hair instead.

* * *

Time keeps flowing instead of stuttering forward like usual, but only in the Tea Party clearing. It isn't as smooth as the first day, lingering too long at dawn and skipping quickly to four o'clock, and each successive dusk seems to drag out longer and longer. Morris might mind if it didn't give Red an excuse to linger; these days, a Tea Party seems incomplete without loitering with herat the edge of the table or beneath the tree with her after the dishes have been cleared.

"Does time usually keep going like this for so long?" Red asks lazily one evening, a few weeks after the phenomenon began.

Morris snorts. "No," he says. "More than three days was unheard of, before." He sinks back onto the grass and laces his fingers beneath his head, enjoying the way the tree branches overhead frame the sky.

"I like it," she says. "There are so many things that show up in the sunrise or the sunset that didn't in the afternoon and it makes the whole thing lovelier." Morris hums in agreement, and she goes silent for a long time. "The Hatter hates it," Red adds after the clouds have gone from fiery orange to muted pink. "It breaks his watch, apparently."

"That watch hasn't worked for two hundred years," Morris says, and grins when Red's laughter ripples through the leaves. "The one time it did, it was because he played poker with Time and made it noon for a week just so the watch would be right, but I think everyone would prefer to forget about that. It was miserably hot, and it didn't end until the Protocol…" he trails off, but he lifts one hand and mimes writing in the air.

She nods slowly. "I'm sorry."

"We weren't friends, really, even before," Morris admits.

Red lays down beside him, and even without looking he can feel her peering at him through the grass. "I thought that was a job requirement?"

"Oh, it is," Morris says, grimacing. "But the thing about forcing people to be friends is that, somewhere underneath, there's always going to be this niggling little resentment eating its way to the surface, like one of those wasps that lay eggs inside of a host so that the larvae can devour it from the inside out."

She hesitates, stirring the grass with her fingers. "Even with the Protocol?"

"Especially then." He shudders and, surprisingly, so does she, sitting up abruptly and wrapping her arms around her legs. Morris isn't sure she's even breathing; the only sound is the _glink_ of moths rebounding off of the new lights in the tree. "What's the matter?"

Red examines her hands instead of looking at him. "We're friends, right, Morris?"

"Of course," he says.

"Would that…" She squirms. "Would that change, if I were the Hatter?"

Morris bites down on his tongue to hold in his glee that she's seriously considering it, because he can tell she needs something more substantial than simple delight. "If I decided it did, would you let me go?"

Her lips twist in displeasure. "Yes," she says after a moment of consideration.

"Then no," Morris says, unable to resist his grin any longer. "It wouldn't change. _Of course _it wouldn't. And you'll be the best Hatter Wonderland has ever seen."

She drops back down, propping herself up on one elbow so he can look up at her without the grass obscuring her face. "You think so?"

"Anyone who got a good look at last week's tricorns would say the same thing," Morris tells her.

He's never seen her eyes burn like this before, but it makes his whole spine tingle pleasantly. "Because I've been thinking it might be kinder to put him out of his misery," she breathes, and the tingle becomes a jolt of something less painful than electricity but with just as much force.

The only one who would be damaged by what she's suggesting is the Hatter himself, because the Protocol hasn't so much as twitched. "Yes," he says, and she sways down toward him fractionally—or that is only his imagination, and she flops to the ground instead, her face hidden by the grass and her own hair.

"How soon could we do it?"

Even tomorrow wouldn't be soon enough, but there are practicalities to consider. "A month, perhaps. The easiest way would be to get him between two mirrors," Morris says. "It would look like a full rewrite and no one would be able to prove otherwise once they were destroyed, but we'd have to be careful not to arouse suspicion in getting them together. They'd have to be new, no smears or cracks or anything, and no one in their right minds would order two at once."

"I'll get one and you get the other a week or two later," Red says. She wanders her hand toward him to grip his wrist; the pressure makes his heart beat erratically. "And then I'll really belong here, forever."

She already does, but this way even she won't be able to deny it.


	21. Hatter: Ascension

**Ascension**

The mirrors are nestled between racks of pelts waiting to be plucked, in hopes that the fur will muffle any sounds. Red drapes a sheet over each of them for now, to keep them clean until they're needed. She is the only one who uses this part of the workshop lately, but she will take no chances.

She sneaks the cover off of one late at night to try on her first hat. It weighs far less than a helmet, and somehow feeling how well it fits is different than simply knowing that she made it from measurements of her own head. A thrill trips down her spine when she traces the brim with her fingers. Promotions have never helped in the past, but this one—

Red drops the sheet and her reflection flickers out of view. She takes off the hat and spins it between her hands. The Jabberwock was an act of desperation, less about the consequences than the need to at least try _something_. This premeditation feels more pointed, like she's staking a claim to her own sickness before it can thrust its way down her throat and destroy her. Not, perhaps, the right thing to do, but at least this way she can pick her poison.

She goes to find the Hatter. He lives in a mercurial daze increasingly often of late, spending almost every night glassy-eyed from the jasmine that keeps him quiet when the pain comes. When she takes his hand and leads him out of the house, he shuffles along without complaint. The path between his house and his workshop is short, less than ten feet, but Red strains her ears for any sound that would indicate a witness. The forest is silent but for the faint rustle of branches in the breeze.

The Hatter tries to wobble over to the hurdle, but Red tugs a little harder and says, "Come on. I'll take you to Haigha," at which he straightens up and makes an effort to focus on her. She plasters on a smile, which he returns weakly.

"W-w-where—" he manages to say.

"You'll see him in a minute," Red tells him. She leaves him trembling between the two shrouded mirrors and hoists herself onto the top of the nearest rack of pelts, out of range of the reflections but close enough to pull away the sheets. The fabric is cold in her hands, but when she tugs it flies away as if weightless.

Her chest reverberates with the shock of the reflections crashing together, a silent echo of the Hatter's shriek. She watches pieces of him stream off into eternity in a graceful arc, separating like felt tearing away from itself. He screams until his throat is nothing but bloodied meat; the noise rattles through her skull even after he collapses, vacant-eyed and gurgling.

She drops the sheets again, to protect herself while she smashes the mirrors with the heaviest block she can find. The Hatter slumps against the pelts and drools while she collects the pieces and grinds them to silvery powder, which she gathers in a stovepipe left over from when she was still learning. When she's done she digs a hole and plants the mirror dust in the ground between the Hatter's house and the workshop.

The evidence destroyed, there is nothing left to do but lead the Hatter back to his house and put him to bed. In the morning, they will find him and his obliteration will be ruled a tragic accident, an errant fluke in the Protocol. She is the apprentice, and a competent one, so of course she will take his place.

She imagines can feel the change already when she dons her hat once more, and she runs down the path that now belongs to her. The lights in Morris's house are still on, so she raps his door with her knuckles and waits only seconds before he answers. His eyes widen and go straight to the hat on her head. The world stutters while she waits for him to speak.

Morris brushes the brim of her hat just as she did only an hour ago. "Hatter…" he breathes, and her stomach quivers with the certainty that she's found her name at last. "It suits you."

Delighted that he agrees, she captures his hand before it can retreat to his side. He doesn't seem to mind when she folds it between both of her own. "I'm not the Hatter _yet_, Morris," she says, kissing his knuckles before letting him go. "There has to be a commencement."

"Formalities," Morris says dismissively. "You're the Hatter, Red, and I think you always have been."

"Not Red," she tells him. "Not anymore. It never fit me anyway."

He beams and pulls her inside; there are tea things set out in the living room, steam curling up from two new cups. "Hatter, then," he says, slowly, tasting the name the way he would a new tea. "Yes, it's much better." His grin is infectious and she finds herself smiling along with him as he hands her the first cup before taking the second for himself. "How do you feel?"

She considers before answering; the adrenaline is gone now and her eyes itch from tiredness, but for once nothing hurts. "Wonderful," she says.

* * *

Morris handles the second half of her coup, notifying his family of the ex-Hatter's accidental rewrite and dealing with the Two and Three of Diamonds, who arrive a few hours afterwards to take him to the hospital. "He'll go to the Ward for the Terminally Rewritten," Morris tells her when they're gone, as he presses the broken watch that is the badge of office into her hands. "They'll do what they can for him and try to rehabilitate him enough to start again."

"There's no chance he'll remember—"

"No, no of course not, he's farther gone than the severest of rewrites and loss is forever. But he might be able to walk around on his own and take orders one day." Hatter smirks and keeps setting the table. "You don't have to do that, you know. The Hatter isn't obligated to—"

"I like helping around the table," Hatter says. "If you still want my help, of course." The things he told her about friendship and resentment echo in the back of her mind.

"Of course I do," Morris says, all smiles. They meet in the middle; he sets down the last cup while she frames it with silverware. "Now, about the commencement—you're ready?"

Hatter adjusts her hat—a more colorful one than last night's trial run, jade green with a fresh sprig of lilac tucked into the band—and swallows against the nerves fluttering up from her stomach. "I'm the Hatter," she says, a reminder for herself more than for him. "I'm ready for anything."

"You're going to be marvelous," he says fervently. "But, remember, the Queen will most likely make an appearance and if she does—"

"Agree with everything she says." She lets him guide her into the Hatter's—into her armchair. "I can handle the Queen." There's been no reason to really exercise the skills she taught herself in the Glassland, not when even the weather seemed determined to embrace her here, but she hasn't forgotten how to wrap people around her fingers.

Morris grins, dagger-sharp and infinitely more exciting. He gives her hand a final squeeze before spinning away to greet the first guests, a flurry of ragged pinstripes that are hers as much as the table, now. She pours herself a cup of ginger and lets it tingle along her tongue while she waits.

It's a normal Tea Party, for the most part. The Partiers pay their respects; a few of them bring little gifts. The largest is a box of new ribbons from the White Rabbit, who mutters that the Queen will be along later and then scuttles to the other end of the table to nibble on a blueberry scone; the Mock Turtle is one of the late arrivals and begins to sing so mournfully that the Dormouse emerges from his pot and cries himself to sleep again.

Only one of the Partiers, a scrawny bat in a fraying jacket, asks about the ex-Hatter. "Mercury got the better of him," Hatter says, and no more is said on the subject.

She has just begun to grow tired of sitting when a long-legged frog marches into the clearing and plays a fanfare. Morris is at her side in the same instant that she leaps from the chair, and the White Rabbit scrambles away from the table, clearing his throat. "Lords and ladies—Madam Hatter—" he bobs his head in Hatter's direction. "Partiers and sycophants—I give you Her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts."

Morris had warned her of the Queen's resemblance to Edwina, and that it ended right beneath the surface. Still, the coldness in her eyes is startling; it's sharper than a bandersnatch's snarl. Her carriage is flanked by four attendants, all wearing smiles that look in very real danger of cracking.

"You're her?" the Queen's eyes flick to the hat, and the instincts Hatter learnt in the Red Queen's court come to the fore. She bows as deeply as she can without upsetting the hat.

"Yes, your majesty," she says, startled by how easy it is to mix fear with the appropriate level of awe even after all this time. When she looks up again, the Queen is smiling, or perhaps just baring her teeth. "It's so very kind of you to grace us with your royal presence," Hatter adds with as much sweetness as she can muster, and the smile becomes minutely more genuine.

"Well, you seem more sensible than the last one," the Queen says, and her handmaidens titter in time with each other, looking pained, until she makes a cutting gesture and they stop. "You shall have to visit the palace sometime."

"I _would _like that," Hatter says, beaming until her jaw aches. "I'm afraid I've never played croquet before. I should hate to waste your time with amateur—"

"Oh, nonsense," the Queen says. Hatter beams at her. "You seem like exactly the sort of right-headed person my court could use."

Hatter forces the smile even wider. "You're too kind, your majesty."

The Queen gives her a final, approving nod and gestures grandly down at them. "By all means carry on," she says. "But there are matters of state I must attend to, and…" Already she is rolling away, and Hatter joins the other Partiers in another lengthy bow, and straightens up slowly while the Queen's court trot after the departing carriage.

"See?" she murmurs when they're out of sight. "That wasn't so bad." Her heart is hammering, though, and the happy atmosphere of the Party is gone.

"She likes you," Morris agrees, sounding relieved. "If she didn't, she would have stayed until she had an excuse to take someone's head."

It's far enough into the Party that it feels like there ought to be dancing, but no one is really in the mood. The final stretch to six o'clock is punctuated by the clatter of dishes and little else, and few of the Partiers linger after the end comes. "Does she always do this to them?" Hatter asks when they're gone.

"Every time," Morris says unhappily. "We've all seen the guillotine in action."

* * *

The Queen does not return to the Tea Party, nor does she formally invite Hatter to the Heart Palace in the weeks that follow. The Partiers stay happy and Hatter gets busier every day. Now that the Tea Party seal is a guarantee of quality again, those in need of hats send their orders to her rather to the handful of other, lesser hatters working in Wonderland. When she isn't at the table, she slaves away in her workshop.

One night nearly a year after her ascension, she jolts awake to find her sheets soaked through from the icy sweat pouring off of her in what feels like rivulets. Her first attempt to stand brings her to her knees with her head spinning, and she picks herself up more carefully this time, clinging to the walls to stay upright.

Usually she thinks nothing of the path between her house and the Tea Party, but tonight, in the darkness, with the world swaying so un-obligingly beneath her feet, it's a more daunting task than facing down the Queen. She makes her way in fits and starts, stumbling from tree to tree and stopping every so often to get her breath back, for it seems determined to escape from her right now.

Finally, several falls and a lot of crawling later, she makes it to Morris's door and—after a few false starts when the door refuses to stay a consistent distance away from her—manages to knock. She oozes down the frame while she waits for an answer, which isn't long in coming.

"Hatter?"

She slumps against his leg and he crouches over her, concerned but not, she thinks, terribly surprised. It's like being devoured by a furnace; she hadn't realized before how cold she was. "Am I still in one piece?" she asks, because it feels very much as though she isn't.

"You are," he says. "Mercury?"

"Mmmm."

He slides his arms around and beneath her and picks her up, and she tries to melt into his chest like the ice cube she's suddenly turned into. "Would you like some tea?" he murmurs, settling her into something soft and comfortable which, she realizes after a few seconds of bleary deduction, is a couch. He pulls a blanket over her, but it's a poor substitute for _him_ and she glares as he straightens up without her. "Tea?" he prompts, and she nods. "Does anything hurt?" he asks briskly as he puts the kettle on to boil.

"No." She thinks for a moment. "My head itches."

"But you're not in pain?" he says.

"No, but I'm _cold_," she replies. The blanket feels like it's weighted with lead, but she's still shivering. Morris sits next to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders, and she nuzzles into him happily. The kettle whistles what seems like seconds later, and she whimpers when he gets up to retrieve it. "Come _back_."

He returns with a blissfully hot cup and helps her arrange her fingers around it. "Don't worry; it won't be this bad, most days. Not like the old one—he'd been waiting to die for years."

She hums out an agreement and sinks into him, cradling the cup close to herself and drinking the steam. The china is so hot it nearly scalds her, but it's better than freezing to death. "…Morris?"

"Hm?"

"Sorry I woke you."

He nudges the top of her head with his chin, which for some reason makes her cheeks heat up to temperatures that rival the cup in her hands. "I don't mind," he says.

* * *

Hatter wakes up with his arm still looped around her, her fingers stiff from clutching his hand against her chest. When she lets go, she leaves eight red crescents in his skin, and dark coils of guilt tighten around her chest. She cleans up the kettle and the tea things because it's the least she can do and not nearly enough of an apology for imposing on him so late at night and inconveniencing him to help herself, then leaves before her presence can wake him up.

The tree interrupts her before she can lock herself in her workshop, and she starts to climb until she finds a place between branches that fits. On the way up she splits the skin beneath her thumb and cradles her hand to her chest so the blood won't hurt the tree; it is, she thinks, only a fair compensation for the cuts she left on Morris's hand.

Her mouth tastes like tin and she isn't sure if it's a lingering hint of mercury or a result of the tears trying to claw their way out of her eyes. Morris has always been kind to her and she swore not to use his oversight except to take advantage of his tea; it seems that she is less out of practice in twisting people to her whims as she thought. It's part of his job to take care of the Hatter when the mercury flares up, but he's been so patient with her already that it seems unfair to ask for anything extra. She'll be more vigilant in the future, and make her own tea if she needs to.

When Morris's door opens, she tries to hide in the leaves to no avail. He looks right at her and smiles. "Are you feeling better?" he asks.

Reluctantly, she climbs down, hampered by the way her scabbed palm stings. "Yes, thank you. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude—I just—"

He flaps his hand dismissively. "I told you not to worry about it. I'd much rather lose a little sleep than have you suffer because I wasn't around to help." She finally makes it down and he offers a hand to steady her. "Would you like to take a walk?"

"What?"

Morris shrugs. "It's a lovely morning and I'm not sure how much of the Fractal Forest you've seen. It could be fun?"

"All right," she says. He keeps hold of her hand as they go, and she's sure he must notice her shaking. He doesn't comment, though, but points out the small clusters of pinkish flowers that grow next to the roots of tulgey trees and describes at length how the birdsong looks. Yesterday it would have been nice, but yesterday she didn't know how easy it would be to use him.

"Hatter," he says after a while, and she jumps guiltily. "Tell me what's wrong."

His hand is the only thing keeping her here, and she clutches it too tightly for the second time today. "I'm still not right," she whispers. "I should be, because—" She ignores the pain in her injured hand when she waves it back toward the table, trying to indicate her whole world and failing miserably. "—this is all I ever wanted. But, Morris, it's something wrong with _me_, I think. There's something…" Her heart beats too loudly and she tries to smother it until he pulls both of her hands into his. "I don't know what it is, but I'm missing a piece of myself and I keep trying to compensate, but it isn't working."

A strand of hair has slipped from beneath her hat, and he tucks it behind her ear with a gentleness she doesn't deserve. "I know a place that might help," he says.

They walk again, with more purpose this time. He lets her twine her arm through his and she clings to his sleeve so as not to damage his skin any further, and by the time they reach the low, earthen building, her heartbeat has receded from her ears again. "We must be very quiet," Morris says. "Outsiders aren't allowed in."

She winces. "If we're caught, will you get in trouble?"

Morris lets out a sharp bark of laughter. "I've been the March Hare for a decade now," he reminds her. "I'll manage just fine."

They sneak around the perimeter and in through a side door, meeting no one. It's far bigger inside than it seemed from the forest; they enter at a balcony, and Hatter counts seven stories opening up beneath them. Each floor is packed with shelves. "What is this?" she breathes, her voice muffled by the size of the place.

His fingers twitch around hers. "You remember how I told you that Wonderland is recycled?" She nods. "Wonderlanders are too. We start off as an Abovegrounder's—not quite a ghost, but a shadow of one. My Family keeps the records here." She hears the "but" coming before he says it aloud; of course it would go wrong with her. "Sometimes things go wrong and new Wonderlanders begin as a memory, an impression of one thing instead of a whole life. It makes things…" he squirms again, "…harder."

"In what way?" she asks, certain she knows the answer already.

He lowers his voice still further, and she must lean in to hear him. "What you described. Feeling like there's something missing, or that you're broken somehow."

A lump rises in her throat and she chews her lip until she tastes blood. It isn't safe to hold on to him anymore, so she anchors herself with the balcony rail instead. "Sometimes there's someone else inside me, trying to claw their way out through my mind. I don't—" She can feel it now, an invisible hand bent on crushing her windpipe.

"I don't know, Hatter," Morris says softly, and the hand tightens further. It retreats again when he lays a hand on her shoulder, and she snatches a gasp of air while she can. "We'll figure it out, together. I promise."

* * *

Morris shows her the card catalogue, but as she suspected, none of her names are anywhere to be found. "It's going to be fine," he tells her, squeezing her hand before she can panic. "We'll find the truth and even if it's unpleasant you won't have to wonder, so it'll be better." She hasn't the heart to tell him that she doesn't think there _are _any answers, and when he says, "Come on, we'll be late for the Tea Party," she lets him lead her out of the warehouse of histories.

"We are the Tea Party," she reminds him when they're safely in the Fractal Forest again. "It will be late for us."

"I'm not sure that's how it works," he says idly. "We're replaceable, you see. If we weren't the Hatter and the March Hare, it'd just be someone else. The Tea Party's the important thing."

"_You're_ not replaceable," Hatter says, with more severity than she intends.

He ducks his head and bites his lip. "Maybe not to you," he mumbles. "But to the Protocol…"

"The Protocol's stupid, then," she says, and he shushes her frantically, his eyes wide with terror.

"Don't," he says. "It doesn't like being insulted."

"Well, it's true," she says, feeling mutinous. "Besides, maybe it's bored with the way things are. It let me talk about fighting back, before."

He grins. "True. Or…"

She doesn't like the way he's looking at her now, calculating and almost suspicious. "What?"

"Maybe it just likes _you_," he says.

"Why would it do that?"

"Everyone likes you," he says. "The Queen, the Partiers, me…" Hatter coughs to hide her discomfort, but he must pick up on it all the same because he adds, "It was just a thought."

They're nearly in sight of the table by now. "We ought to call them something more interesting than Partiers," Hatter says.

"What?"

"It's so complacent. Like you said before, they come to us for catharsis and when they leave they're less willing to fend for themselves. We have to start at the source if we want to change things, and names are important. I should know." She squeezes his hand and lets go, because she needs both of hers to set the table.

"What, then?"

She shrugs. "Something that's more like the Tea Party, so they can take it with them when they go instead of just coming when they need it."

"Something with anger and sometimes cruelty," he says.

"Exactly. But also desire and the sound of a kettle screaming."

They work along the table for a minute or two, silent save for the occasional suggestion that isn't quite right and the clatter of china. "Fiends," he says abruptly as he begins to lay out the jam.

She laughs. "Yes, that's perfect. Shall we tell them today?"

He agrees and she spends the time until four o'clock smiling; if she can't solve her own identity crisis, at least she can help with another.


	22. Hatter: Alter-Ego

**Alter-Ego**

No one has ever knocked at her door before after the sun goes down, so she's startled when the sharp tap-tap interrupts her perusal of an order from the Clubs around midnight. Morris is on her front step, vibrating with nerves. "I have a theory," he blurts out before she can open the door all the way. "Well, I've _had_, but I didn't want to say anything in case I was wrong like last time. But I'm almost sure now."

"What is it?"

He shakes his head. "Not here. Come with me first."

At first she thinks they're going back to the warehouse of histories, but he skirts around it until they reach the mouth of a tunnel, the opening obscured by thick tangles of foliage and almost invisible in the moonlight. Hatter redoubles her grip on his arm as they begin the descent.

Her breath feels icy as it ricochets around in her throat after they take a turn and leave the last light behind and the darkness presses in on her with enough force to make her ribs ache in protest. She wonders if the sound illuminates the tunnel enough for Morris to see; at any rate, he doesn't stumble as she does. "The ceiling gets lower here," he says after a few minutes or a few hours. His fingers brush her forehead, and she stoops until he starts moving forward again. "It isn't far now."

The ground takes a sharp turn downwards, and she scrabbles in the dirt to stay upright until he wraps an arm around her waist and holds her steady. It's harder than it should be not to bury her face in his hair, as if hiding from the darkness will somehow make it less.

"Hatter," he says when they're still again.

"Yes?"

"If… I'm wrong, it could be very bad for you. I— I'm _sure _I'm not and if I was, then—but there's always a chance." His thumb slides over the fabric of her skirt, and she hates the way she shivers in response. "If you want to go back—"

"We've come this far," she says.

They take another step down; Hatter can feel packed earth, strangely warm, brushing her shoulders. Something caresses her jaw like fingers and she jerks away, startled. "What is this place?" she asks, shrinking into Morris while the—whatever it is—caresses her hair and nuzzles against her throat.

"It's the chamber that anchors the Protocol," Morris says.

Her vision fills with silver, laced through with iridescent spiderwebs. The fingers—the Protocol?—traces her eyelids when she blinks, so lightly she isn't sure whether it's real or only in her head. "What's it _doing_?"

Morris pulls her closer still and her ears buzz. "It's treating you like an Alice, I think." The buzz becomes a purr, higher-pitched than a cat's. "I think it created you," Morris breathes. "When Alice missed the Rabbit Hole, I think it tried to replace her with you. That's why it doesn't try to stop you from changing and why it isn't attacking you now. As far as it knows, you're an Alice that never left. Or a version of one, at least. I've seen it… happen before. Edwina is the Queen's alter-ego, the way she would have been if the Protocol could rewrite her properly."

The Protocol curls around her cheek and pulls her head up and away from Morris's, humming softly. It outlines her ear and a whisper (_mine, please_) gusts through her thoughts. "A version of one," Hatter repeats, barely aware that her hands are shaking until Morris catches them up and holds them steady. The Protocol swirls around her, making a strange clicking noise. "What does that mean for me?" Besides that she has been right all along, she supposes. The Protocol croons again, (_mine!_).

"It means you're something new," Morris says gently. "It means you can _change_."

The final word resonates through her skull, echoed by the Protocol. They both sound so _eager_, but her eyes are prickling. "I want to go home," she says. The Protocol whimpers (_don't—don't—_) as Morris guides her back through the exit.

* * *

Morris lets her set the pace as they return from the Protocol's home, not complaining when she drags her feet. "I'm sorry," he says, before she can disappear behind her door. "I thought it would be—"

"No, it was fine," Hatter says while her intestines squirm. "It's me that's the problem." At this point it shouldn't surprise her.

"_No_," he says, his fingers closing around her wrist briefly before he lets go as if burned. "There's nothing wrong with you, Hatter." He tries to smile, with limited success. "You've been here for almost thirteen years, after all, and Alice hasn't even made it once."

"Alices aren't supposed to overstay their welcomes, either," Hatter points out.

"You haven't," Morris insists.

He tries to say more, but she lays a finger against his lips to silence him. "Thank you, Morris," she says. She means it because it's clear he believes he's telling the truth, so at least one person wants her here in spite of everything. "Please, I just…"

She searches for words, but Morris seems to understand her need to be alone right now. "I'll see you tomorrow," he says, and then fades into the darkness with a final, sympathetic smile.

She slumps inside the entryway, shuddering. The constriction in her throat belongs only to her—she knows what _Alice_ feels like, and this time her airways are closing all on their own. Thoughts careen around inside her skull—does Alice know and how long has Morris known and _how_ can she be a good Hatter when she isn't even herself—

Something rips wetly in her chest, so sharply that she can hear the flesh tearing away. Maybe knowing that she's only a placeholder will be enough to kill her at last—

And the Protocol is _there_, pooling in her mind instead of around her shoulders this time. She shrieks while it croons, wordlessly at first, but as her heart returns to normal she starts to find sense in the sounds arriving in her head without ever passing through her ears. (_—and listen to the blood sloshing against the sides of my cavern and echoing__echoing__echoing__ away but never for long; it always comes galloping back in the end for another dose of oxygen—burning, devouring oxygen, but the alternative is worse—_)

"Leave me _alone_," she groans, and the tenor of the silent voice changes at once. It presses even closer, murmuring soothingly. (_i reached and reached for her and there was only a raging vacuum waiting where the lungs should have been and i made you to breathe so i could keep beating and the blood will race and the body can still live and you're better because you're _mine _and nothingcantakeyouaway—i waited—_)

Hatter closes her eyes and rests her head against the doorframe to listen to the rush of words better. "I'm still not the one who was _supposed_ to be," she says, and the Protocol shuts up at last.

(_it only takes a moment to make them forget that_) it whispers at last. There's a clink as of cutlery, and the knowledge fills her head: reach out _here _and scratch out a thought _there _and she will never be rejected again.

* * *

The next morning, Hatter examines her face in the mirror she usually reserves for a quick glance to ensure that today's hat is indeed the right one. She tilts her head back and forth to examine her features, wondering if she shares them with Alice. The Protocol is no help at all; it prowls through her thoughts with a proprietary air and mutters to itself, too quietly for Hatter to pick out words.

After fifteen minutes of this, she's exasperated enough to address it directly. "Am I an exact replica of her?"

(_no, you're better_) It says it as if it's the most obvious thing in the world before going back to its circuit of her mind.

Hatter's stomach twinges for no reason, and she presses on the spot until the pain fades. "If I were better, she wouldn't be able to do that," she says. The Protocol growls. "How long are you planning on staying there?"

Its sudden silence feels like the pressure that heralds a thunderstorm, which is answer enough. (_please?_)

"I'd like to be alone with what few private thoughts she allows me," Hatter snaps.

(_…please?_) She can feel her lips pressing together with irritation while the Protocol paints mazes on her retinas. (_mine?_) When she still doesn't respond, it hums anxiously and whirls through her thoughts, perhaps searching for an answer there. (_i can give you what you need and keep you safe and eat the hallucinations before they trap you like they did the last hatter, pleaseplease?_)

"Why do you _want _to?"

It crows, and she shudders when a cool finger trails down the inside of her spine. (_mine!_)

"Don't do that!" She rolls her shoulders until the bizarre sensation fades.

The Protocol goes silent for a while longer. (_i could hurt her for you_) it offers at last. (_i could make it go both ways_)

Hatter goes quite still. "So she'd feel what I feel?" Her reflection stares back at her with pathetic hope in its eyes.

(_let me stay!_)

She chews the inside of her cheek. Maybe if Alice hurts whenever Hatter does, then Alice will stop doing whatever it is that causes the injuries in the first place and it will be better for both of them. "All right," she says, and the Protocol's glee drowns out the quiet doubt hovering in the back of her mind.

* * *

Usually she leaves with enough time to help Morris set the table; today, she barely makes it out before the first fiends. The Protocol grumbles at the same moment Morris's shoulders go rigid, and when he says, "Are you all right?" she can hear the strain in his voice.

Hatter shrugs. "What's the matter?"

Morris reaches out like he's going to touch her hair but thinks better of it at the last second, spinning away from her instead. She catches the grey cast of his skin before he can escape, though. "It came with you?" He sounds like he's being strangled.

(_mine_) the Protocol whines at the perfect pitch to saw through her thoughts and leave her cringing. "I couldn't get it to leave," Hatter says, and the Protocol makes a noise like shredding paper.

"It shouldn't have been able to do that," Morris mutters, biting his lip.

The Protocol gives no warning, just lunges; Hatter jerks away, groping uselessly through the air as if that will help. By some miracle, it does, and she drags the Protocol into herself again. It struggles against her grip, snarling the whole way.

Morris stares at her, raising one hand to straighten his cravat. She can see his fingers shaking even from here. "What just—"

"I don't know," she gasps, while the Protocol tries to leap at him again. She wrestles it back and it coils in the back of her mind, hissing indignantly.

(_fix a thought here, an emotion there—_)

_No,_ she thinks at it, furious, and it spins in place. "I— It just tried—"

"I felt it, yes," Morris says, steadier now. He isn't propping himself up on the table anymore, at least. "But _why_?"

The Protocol growls once more, and then its voice abruptly turns velvety. (_you're mine, you promised!_)

The fiends are beginning to arrive, an iguana and a bellowing of bullfinches, so she mutters, "Give us a moment," and hurries off to hide in the tree line. She can feel Morris's eyes burning into her back as she leaves.

(_he—_) the Protocol begins angrily.

"He's my _friend_," Hatter snarls back. "He doesn't need to be fixed!"

It lashes back and forth like an angry snake with nothing to strike. (_everyone needs to be fixed except _you)

"Not him." Hatter folds her arms and glares at a twist of moss dangling from a branch; from the way the Protocol writhes, it knows she means the expression for it. "If you touch him at all, I'll—" but she can't think of a credible threat, having no idea how to go about hurting something like the Protocol. It radiates smug superiority. "And the fiends are fine the way they are, too," she finishes lamely.

(_they need me_)

"Not like this," Hatter says. "Not rewriting."

Little shocks race down her spine and out along her sides. (…_editing_)

"I said no." She chances a peek around the tree that blocks her away from the Tea Party and meets Morris's eyes in an instant; he's still staring after her while he pours the tea. Hatter twitches away again when the Protocol turns its attention to him, too. "Not unless they're really threatening to hurt people."

(_you're people_) the Protocol points out sweetly.

"Morris would never hurt me," she says, and it harrumphs. "He's done nothing but look out for me since I arrived."

(_it's different now_) it insists. (_he's afraid of you now_)

She saw the look in his eyes, so she can't deny that it's true. "He's afraid of you," Hatter whispers. "There's a difference."

The Protocol hesitates for a second or two, then retreats into the recesses of her mind. It doesn't respond when she asks for a promise, but she won't miss a Tea Party, so she resolves to keep a firmer hold on it than before.

* * *

The Protocol still grumbles whenever Morris gets closer than a few feet, so Hatter avoids him for his own safety for as long as she can. Practice makes her better at making her own tea when the mercury keeps her up; as it promised, the Protocol keeps the edge off of it even on bad nights. Morris is hurt by the distance she keeps, although he tries to hide it—for that matter, so is she, because she misses him desperately—but it's better he be hurt and _himself_ than what the Protocol would do if it got the chance.

"_Why_ do you hate him so much?" Hatter asks, after an uncomfortably close call when her hand brushed his during clean-up. The Protocol just snarls like it usually does, and if there are words there, she can't pick them apart well enough to make them comprehensible.

On the whole, though, she's very successful at keeping away from Morris, until a few months have gone by and sharp spikes of ice drive suddenly into her ankles and knees and wrists and elbows while she's in the workshop. She makes it only a few steps out of the house before the ground leaps up to embrace her and her vision goes grey and spins off down a tunnel that is too small for her to follow. The Protocol buzzes frantically in her head (_getupgetupgetup_), so she drags herself forward even though every move is a sharper torture than the last. She tries to scream, to let the pressure bleed out in any way she can, but she can barely manage a breathless rasp.

She claws her way up his door to knock and falls into him when he answers, and—_oh_, Dodgson,she'd forgotten how quickly his arms around her could leech out the worst of the pain, and she lets rational thought slide away, knowing he'll put her back together again.

By now the velvety fog of jasmine is one she knows well, but he is warm enough to burn through the worst of it just as he does to the mercury. The thought arrives like melting snow that perhaps he is a tiny sun, too small to light his own world but just right to keep _her _alive.

"Thank you," she sighs, though her tongue feels like a lead weight.

His fingers roll over her like sunbeams. "'s no trouble," he says, his voice a badly tuned radio that blurs in and out of focus. "Never is."

She envies cats their ability to purr and makes a note to learn how. "You're a good friend, Morris." His hands come to rest on the back of her neck and it feels so _deliciously_ nice that she starts to melt. "Missed you," she whimpers into the crook of his arm, hoping that she won't drip _too _much on his furniture as she dissolves.

"You should come by more often," he says. His hands start to move again and her shoulders cool down sufficiently to re-solidify.

She tries to ask, "Are you sure?" and knows he'll understand when she stumbles over the words.

He's missed her too, he says, and suddenly her heart is too large for its place in her ribs and she is warm like the first bubbles rising in a kettle. She—

There is a snarl in her head (_MINE_) and then his pained cry is the most horrifying noise she has ever heard, and she scrambles away from him and reels the Protocol with her, thinking _nonononopleaseno!_

But his eyes are still lucid and so, so _very_ frightened when he looks at her next, and though the Protocol lunges at him again she has a firm grip on it now. She stutters an appalled apology and runs despite the way her legs are coming apart at the seams and she has plunged back into a frigid sea, but she refuses to collapse until she is safe behind a locked door in her own house.

She sinks into the cracks between floorboards and the Protocol whirls around and through her, frictionless and as cold as the rest of the air. She gathers what little energy she has left to scream, "You ruin everything!" and it wraps suddenly close to her.

_(i'm here for you_) it whispers, as soft as jasmine, (_you don't need _him_ because you have _me)

In the morning she aches from shivering.


	23. Hatter: Hindsight

**Hindsight**

Hatter avoids the Tea Party for months, making no more than a token appearance at each one. The Protocol grumbles about this at length, but it proved how little she can trust it so she isn't inclined to listen. She can feel her resolve crumbling, though, hurried along by tremors that have lingered since that night. The last of it disintegrates when Morris catches her wrist before she can escape from today's Party.

He lets go again when the Protocol growls. "I'm sorry," he says. "I just—" Hatter watches him struggle for words, as if mere vocabulary could make things better between them. "I know it wants the best for you," he says at last. "And it should. But I miss you and so do the fiends."

The Protocol mutters about insolent upstarts and Hatter slumps, feeling exhausted. "I miss you, too," she whispers. "But it's dangerous for me to be near you." Morris reaches out anyway, and she stumbles back until the Protocol stops fretting. "It doesn't mind as long as we're just the Hatter and the March Hare, but as soon as we get too close or, or touch—"

"So stay," Morris says. "Be the Hatter and we'll keep the table between us."

Hatter flinches at the reminder that she's been shirking her responsibilities to protect him and nods. "I'm so sorry, Morris," she says as they return to the table.

He shrugs. "The Protocol has its reasons," he says.

The fiends part cleanly down the center to let her on to the table, and she can feel the smugness radiating from the Protocol's usual perch in her head when her heels click on the veneer. (_for once he's right_) it says, languidly tying itself into a knot; the air around Morris shimmers, and the color drains from his face.

"Stop it," she mutters under her breath, and the Protocol retreats, humming tunelessly.

(_he's just a thing_) it says. (_ultimately meaningless, not like you—_) Hatter shoves it deeper into the empty recesses of her mind where Alice ought to be with all the mental force she can muster. It falls, laughing. (_nothing but a broken wisp of color—a misfired synapse— not even a very _good_ thing—_)

"He's _mine_," Hatter snarls, much louder than she intends. The nearest few fiends giggle behind their teacups, stealing not-so-subtle glances at Morris.

(_they're all yours_) the Protocol croons. It snaps out to wipe out a single thought from the nearest fiend, faster than she can react. Hatter lunges after it and gets nothing but a fleeting impression of discomfort before it scatters like smoke. (_the difference is he's the only one who would own you if he—_) It reaches out again, but Hatter's quicker this time and drags it away from the next would-be victim, a forlorn Ace of Spades who's staring at an empty plate and fiddling with a loose thread on his collar instead of participating.

"Tea not to your liking?" Hatter asks, and the fiend starts.

"Oh, no, nothing like that," he says. "I only… the Queen guillotined my partner today, and it's—I don't have much of an appetite."

"I'm sorry," Hatter says, ignoring the Protocol's continued insistence that the Spade would be happiest if she deleted the offending memory. She pours him a cup of chamomile instead. "Is there anything I can do…?"

He snorts. "Get rid of the Queen?" he mumbles so only she can hear.

(_you _could) the Protocol says thoughtfully.

Hatter shoves it away again, but that doesn't stop the idea from glittering in her mind like a jewel. Without a murderous Queen, Wonderland could flourish and the Tea Party wouldn't have to be a last resort to stave off despair. "Perhaps," she says, and the Spade smiles wanly. She leaves him to his thought and attends to the rest of the fiends, taking care not to meet Morris's eyes. He will be either angry or sympathetic, and she is prepared for neither.

When it's over and the fiends have mostly gone, Hatter hovers behind her chair while Morris gathers up the dishes to wash. He doesn't ask her to help, but he makes no indication that he wants her to leave, either, so she ignores the Protocol's protest and stays, clutching the back of her chair to steady herself against the headache that has been building since she spoke to the Spade. "Morris," she stutters at last, when the pressure coiling behind her eyebrows becomes too much to stay silent. "Do you think we might—that we could do something about the Queen?"

His hands go still on the butter knife he was scrubbing. "She's very powerful," he says as he begins to move again. "And we're not even sure she can die properly. People have tried."

(_cut off her head_) the Protocol says. (_even if she lives, she won't be able to do anything_) Hatter relays this to Morris, who nods, frowning.

"That would work," he says. "The trouble is getting close enough to try. It's very hard to get close to her in any sense of the word."

"I could go to the palace," Hatter says. Morris twitches. "You did say she likes me. If I gained her trust—"

"And I've no doubt you could, but, Hatter, you haven't seen how temperamental she can be—you'd have to be so careful—" He drops what he's doing to look at her, worry etched on his face.

"I will be," Hatter assures him. "But someone has to do it."

"We should send her an invitation first," Morris says. "She doesn't take kindly to people showing up at the palace unannounced." He hesitates. "I can take care of it, if you want. I know the procedure and I have connections in the palace—my sister works on the croquet fields, and of course the White Rabbit is my cousin—"

Hatter nods. "Thank you, Morris."

"Thank you," he blurts out. "For staying."

She teeters on the brink of stepping closer to him, but the Protocol stirs, hissing, and she stays where she is. "I'd stay everyday, if I could," she says. "I'd never leave if I didn't think—but I can't, Morris, it's too—I won't hurt you. I _won't_."

He says nothing, and for a while the only sound is the clink of dishes and the water he stirs with his hands. The rhythm draws the ache from out of her skull, and although it leaves fissures in the bone as it goes, the release of pressure is worth it. She sinks into her chair. "Does it help you?" he asks at last.

Hatter drags herself out of contemplation of the movement of his hands like rising from a dream. "Hm?"

"When the mercury—the Protocol—does it make you better?" His voice breaks, and he makes a visible effort to stay calm.

The Protocol squawks angrily. "No," Hatter whispers.

"Then why—" His hand slips, and the last saucer splits cleanly in two against the edge of the sink. He's quick enough to keep it from cutting him. "Why won't it let _me _do what I can for you?"

The truth is the worst answer she could possibly give him, but any lie she could come up with would ring false. "It doesn't like you," she tells him, and hates herself for it and the way he cringes. "I don't know why."

"Oh," he says, in a voice that crumples in on itself. He fishes the pieces of saucer out of the sink and lets the water drain. "I—I'll get that invitation for the Queen ready. We should warn the fiends, so they can stay away if they want—"

The Protocol hums its approval at the way he struggles over each word. "It's _wrong_, Morris," Hatter says desperately, but he's already halfway gone.

"It's the Protocol," he says without looking around, his hand still on his doorknob. "Whatever it decides is the truth."

"Morris—"

The door shuts with a barely-audible click, but the sound echoes in her head like thunder all the same.

* * *

The Queen is late to her Tea Party, and since it's one they're throwing in her honor, they can't begin until she arrives. The handful of fiends brave enough to attend fidget with their empty dishes; there are others, not regular enough to merit the title, who seem less ill at ease than puzzled. Hatter takes advantage of the waiting to sneak a glance at Morris, who is still resolutely avoiding her gaze just as he has been for days, since she told him of the Protocol's irrational dislike.

She imagines staring holes in his face so she can see what he's thinking and, perhaps, learn how to help him, but he only shuffles in place and re-straightens the silverware at the place they set for the Queen. (_don't fret so_) the Protocol says lazily. (_he's better now_ _and i didn't even have to fix him for you_)

The Queen's fanfare saves her from answering. Morris clamps a hand over the Dormouse's mouth when he sits up and giggles hysterically, and the White Rabbit comes barreling out of the trees to make his introductions, and the air over the table hums with the sound of two dozen pairs of shoulders pulling up to protect their owners' necks.

Hatter holds her breath while the Queen herself rolls into view on her carriage. _Now _she can feel Morris looking at her, and she unsticks her tongue to say "Welcome, your majesty," so the Queen won't notice his insubordination. She meets the Queen's cold, dark eyes for a fraction of a second before sinking into a deep bow with the rest of the assemblage. "It's so good of you to come," she adds.

The Queen sniffs. "You never visited my palace," she says.

"I was waiting for an invitation, your majesty—the last thing you need, I'm sure, is the likes of me intruding on your no doubt busy schedule—" Hatter stays in a cramped half-bow until she's sure the Queen is mollified.

"True," the Queen says with pursed lips. She lets Morris escort her to her seat at the head of the table, opposite Hatter's chair. "It has been too long since I visited the Tea Party. But matters of state have been exceedingly demanding in the decade since the decimation of the land beyond the Looking Glass."

Morris's eyes flash toward her once more, but Hatter forces herself to keep smiling. "Of course, your majesty. Absolutely understandable—"

"And this," the Queen continues, taking a delicate sip of the tea which Morris poured for her, "seems as good a time as any to announce that I am placing a bounty on the Jabberwock's head." Her brows draw together, and the whole table flinches. "I have tolerated it until now, but the chessmen have regained much of their former numbers and they are becoming a nuisance."

"Quite so, your majesty," Hatter purrs, quite glad that none of the new chessmen are in attendance today.

The Queen smiles brittlely. "Therefore, anyone who can bring me the Jabberwock's head and ensure the safety of the land beyond the Looking Glass will have my eternal thanks." The sharp edge to her smile says otherwise, but Hatter titters along with the others.

"We'll put our heads together and I'm sure we'll come up with something," Hatter says, and the Queen smirks appreciatively.

"You really _must _come to the palace sometime, my dear. Drop in whenever you like," she says.

"Of course I could never leave my Tea Party," Hatter says, and the Protocol coos softly in her ear. "But I would so love to visit."

"Yes, do," the Queen says with another sip of tea.

* * *

After the Queen's departure, no one really wants to stick around, so the Tea Party clears out faster than usual. Hatter stays behind to help with the dishes, and they fall into what would have been a comforting rhythm if Morris weren't so determined to act as if she didn't exist.

"I think I might have to go back to the Glassland for a day or two," Hatter whispers as they move from teacups to saucers. Something flickers over Morris's face, too fast for her to determine a label for it but there nonetheless, so at least he can hear her even if he wants to pretend otherwise. "The Jabberwock—" Morris still doesn't know the whole story, and she isn't sure she could survive the revulsion he's certain to feel if she tells him of their alliance. "She's my responsibility," Hatter finishes. She's not sure whether she wants to go for the Queen's sake or the Jabberwock's, but she can't _not_.

"I'll look after the Tea Party while you're away," Morris says, in clipped tones that she's never heard before.

This isn't what she wants, and she shudders at her own selfishness; she wants him to worry and fret and tell her to be careful the way he would have a week ago, so maybe his careful distance is for the best. She still can't resist saying, "I'll miss you," because maybe the way to combat one truth is with another.

"You can't," Morris says. His voice is ragged but it's his own again. "I—" he sets down the dish he was working on and twists his dishcloth between his hands. "The Protocol has to be heeded and individuals don't _matter_. Those are the _rules_, and I have to follow them even if you don't."

The Protocol crows approvingly. "Morris—"

"If it hates me that much, it's for a reason," he whispers. "And the last thing I want is to hurt you."

Hatter snarls before she can stop herself. "You're hurting me _now_," she says. "I want—I want—" She can't put it to words, but when she grabs his wrist he doesn't pull away, and that is close enough.

"Maybe I just wasn't meant to be this," Morris says, sounding as if he's trying to convince himself as much as her. "I was too young and stupid and—" Now he does extricate himself from between her fingers before turning resolutely back to the sink. "It was a fluke and it's given me more chances than I deserve, but now you're here and it's tired of tolerating someone sub-par."

"That's ridiculous," Hatter snaps, even though the Protocol is babbling agreement. "And even if you're right it doesn't matter because I'm practically an Alice and _I _think you're the best March Hare any Hatter could ask for." He keeps staring into the sink miserably. "You said yourself it was time for a change—to fight back—"

(_no!_)

"—just think about it while I'm gone," Hatter says, slapping the Protocol back down when it rears up in protest. "Please, Morris."

He nods without looking at her.

* * *

The Protocol pulls the appropriate strings to make the Looking Glass come to them, then hunkers down in the back of her mind while she wades through. She wanders through the House, taking care to avoid Thackery's notice, until she finds the gardens. Without the Red Queen to tend them, they're wildly overgrown, choked with weeds and spilling out of the beds and onto the network of paths. A few of the stronger blossoms call out for her help as she passes by, but most of them are too far gone to do anything but wither.

Hatter picks her way to the gate that leads to the board and stops, looking out. It is unrecognizable: ahead of her are the ruins of the Red Castle, a heap of dull red stones half-hidden beneath new foliage. Beyond, the squares are distorted where the ditches meandered without proper maintenance, and the crystal-blue ribbon of the Wabe has become a thick, brown-grey scar across the fifth rank. The bandersnatch runs have expanded across half the board, and even from this distance she can see the shattered craters in the red earth where the Jabberwock must have attacked.

She ventures cautiously out of the gardens and down to the ruins of the castle. They are much sturdier now than the last time she explored here, held up by scaffolds of root systems and having had ten years to settle into place. Hatter climbs to the tree and steadies herself against it as she stands up to survey the rest. Percy is down there somewhere, but even if Hatter could find her, she'd be even less familiar than the Glassland itself. She holds on to the tree instead. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and the words dissipate uselessly into the air.

Thunder rips through the air, and Hatter lets herself drift away from the safety of the tree. The ground below is rockier than she remembers, and the gravel crunches underfoot as she leaves the Red Castle behind. She's not quite to the splintered remains of the Queen's Express when she sees the Jabberwock leap up from the bandersnatch runs and fling itself through the air toward her. The Protocol hisses, but Hatter quashes both it and the instinct to flee and holds her ground.

Her knees tremble from the force of the Jabberwock's landing, and then Hatter's bowled over when her old ally whuffles against her shoulder. An antenna whips down to swipe over her eyebrows, and for a second Hatter is a vacuum, tremblingly empty while the atmosphere tries and fails to fill her. She chokes on the sensation, and the Jabberwock lifts her head enough for Hatter to stagger upright again, wheezing. "What was that?" she asks when she has her breath back enough to speak.

The Jabberwock burbles and prods her with the antenna again, and her head rings with silence and wanting. "Oh," she says, swaying. A lump rises in her throat. "If I'd known you wanted to see me, I would have come back much sooner," she whispers. The silence lingers in her gums and the grinding points of her knees and elbows, a tangy not-quite-pain that reminds her of Alice, so she's grateful when the Jabberwock breathes on her and the blast of hot air eases back to herself.

"The Queen wants you dead," Hatter says with a sigh. "I don't think she knows that the Vorpal Sword is gone. Still, be careful, won't you?"

The Jabberwock chirrups; her whiskers twitch and the air between them stirs with electricity that makes Hatter's hair crackle. (_mine_) the Protocol murmurs fondly, and the Jabberwock snorts as its web vibrates along her scales.

"Were we wrong, do you think?" Hatter asks. The Jabberwock only blinks. "We could have found another way, couldn't we? We didn't have to…" she gestures helplessly at the destruction around them. "In Wonderland…" The Jabberwock is trapped here by size, though, so even if Hatter had escaped, she would have left another behind to suffer. But Percy…

She shakes the thought away, because no matter how she chose, someone would have been hurt.

* * *

Hatter makes her way back to Wonderland in a haze of retroactive indecision, but no matter what contortions she forces her mind through, no adequate answer presents itself. The light is fading by the time she reaches the table; she missed the Tea Party, but Morris is still there, cleaning up. He smiles at her before she can brace herself to be ignored. The remnants of the Glassland dance beneath her eyelids, as twisted as the Vorpal Sword, and she can feel herself shaking apart like stone breaking.

Morris catches her before she can fall, and for once the Protocol is silent as he settles her in her chair. "Do you want some tea?" he says, and Hatter nods, sniffing back the tears that she doesn't deserve to shed.

(_you did what you had to_) the Protocol mutters as Morris rummages through the cabinets for a kettle. Hatter shakes her head wearily, but otherwise doesn't bother to respond. She wants to crawl beneath the table and never come out, and maybe that way everyone else will be safe.

Her thoughts slow to a crawl, and it seems only seconds later that Morris places a steaming cup of strawberry lychee in front of her. She cradles it close to her mouth; even the steam tastes of melancholy. "I have something else for you," Morris says quietly. "To apologize for the way I've treated you since—" He trembles when she looks up at him and distracts himself by fumbling through his pockets.

"You don't need to—"

He produces a thin dagger from the depths of his coat, sheathed in dark leather and with a hilt of equally dark metal. "I know it isn't—" Morris swallows audibly. "You've never _needed _knives, but I— it's beautiful and dangerous and I've always liked metaphors. And if you're going to be frequenting the palace you'll need all the extra protection you can get."

Hatter picks it up carefully; the metal chills her fingertips, and it weighs less than she expected. She can feel Morris hovering beside her, waiting for her reaction. "Thank you," she says.


	24. Hatter: Anomaly

**Anomaly**

The Protocol has been better to Morris, these past few years; although it still rumbles out an almost-growl whenever they come close to each other, it no longer strains at the leash she keeps it on when Morris does something it doesn't like. Perhaps, she thinks, it's because she's so much busier now; she frequents the Heart Palace to flatter and fawn over the Queen and visits her fiends at home to spread quiet dissent. She no longer has time to linger at the table with Morris, most days, and it seems that was the only thing the Protocol objected to.

When she's away from the Tea Party, she longs for the clinking of dishes. It follows her everywhere, now; she closes her eyes to sleep and it is the chittering of china against china that rings in her ears, hypnotic and inviting. On the increasingly rare occasion that she has an hour to spare, she stays after the fiends depart and Morris is there to prolong the rhythm.

Today she sits on the edge of the table like they used to when she was just starting out; she puts the silverware away while he conducts a symphony of suds and rags and porcelain. He looks at her diagonally, a sour note coaxed out of a violin that makes the whole melody richer, and harmony turns to cacophony when she lunges for him with white noise crackling in her head.

Their teeth click painfully against each other and she tastes coppery blood mixed with darjeeling on his lips. His choked yelp coils with the _crunch_ of smashed teacups when their momentum jars them into the sink, and she twists her fingers into his hair and yanks so that he will cry out again, louder this time; she drinks the sound and the taste and the feel of his hands reeling her in and—

(_look what you're doing to him!_) the Protocol hisses gleefully.

He makes a plaintive noise when she struggles away from him. They stare at each other, she panting, he not appearing to breath at all. His hand ghosts away from her hip to collect the blood dripping from his lip (it mustbe his, or he'd be gone already). Hatter curls away from him, and then he starts to speak and the Protocol sings in time with the hammering of her heart—and she can't tell whether her surging pulse is from horror or desire and she _should have known better_—

She chokes, or he does, and she topples forward again, her palm over his mouth and the flesh of his cheeks soft beneath her fingernails. His eyes widen until she can see the whites all around, brimming with fear. The pleasurable shiver that streaks down her spine when his lips form a question against her hand makes it clear that she can't stay here any longer, so she lets the Protocol make it not-have-happened before she runs.

* * *

She gets as far as her workshop before the full impact of what just happened hits her with such force that it sends her plummeting to the ground. Her hands stir feebly in the dirt, but the scratch of soil against her skin isn't enough to scour away the memory of how he felt beneath her hands. She tries to scrub it away with her nails instead, to tear away the rush of recollection, but the past is set in stone and she doesn't know how to make _herself_ forget.

(_you mustn't think like that—_)

The words catch in her thoughts like a bur and drives her upright. "Give it back to him," she hisses. She promised—she _promised_ she would never—and now—

(_it doesn't work that way_) the Protocol says, pressing close. (_it's gone forever now_) The delight wrapped around every syllable freezes her stomach.

"You did this," she whispers. "You—you made me so that he'd—you _wanted _me to hurt him—so you could—" She sags against the wall while the world heaves around her.

The Protocol hums. (_i can't make you do anything. you're a part of me and a part of alice and so you are mine and untouchable and that is why i love you—_)

"You don't," Hatter snarls. "If you did you wouldn't have—_Morris_—and you—" His eyes and the fluttering of dying memory in them are imprinted inside her eyelids, and every bone twists and creaks with the weight of what she should have done differently. The Protocol is right; she hurt him too, and _first_.

(_make him forget that he ever forgot_) the Protocol says, almost gently, (_and then it won't matter_)

She stops breathing. "Neither of us will touch him ever again," she says around the noose tightening around her neck.

It has the gall to laugh. (_you couldn't stay away and it's only a matter of time before you slip again_)

Hatter swallows the growl rising in her throat. "If that's what it takes to protect him from you and I, yes, I will." The Protocol flips over and her head spins with the intensity of the memory it flings at her: darjeeling and blood and his hands sliding around her waist—she can feel the heat folding around her even from this phantom. "Stop—_please_—" She scrabbles through the air to find something to keep her here and not flying back to Morris to beg—for forgiveness or another kiss to ease the sting of the first. Neither is something she remotely deserves.

(_you enjoyed hurting him, didn't you?_)

"No," she whispers, against all evidence to the contrary.

* * *

She stands in front of her workshop, wracked with indecision, for nearly an hour before the ache thrumming through every inch of her becomes overpowering. If she stays in Wonderland, sooner or later she'll prove the Protocol correct. There is only one option left to her, so she settles her hat more firmly on her head and starts the trek to the border.

The Looking Glass finds her immediately—surely a sign that she's doing the right thing—and pushes through until it deposits her in the gardens. She sweeps past the wrecked flowerbeds without stopping to listen to the flowers' pleas and only notices that her legs have turned to jelly when her foot catches on a loose stone and she can't catch herself in time. The sting of impact against her chin helps to clear her thoughts of lingering desire, and she breathes a little easier. This is _right._

She sprints by the remains of the Red Castle so that the ghosts of her past mistakes can't latch on to her and drain her willpower. The Jabberwock bellows in the distance, and Hatter waits in the third rank for her to appear. The ground shakes when she lands.

"I need you to be dead," Hatter whispers. The Jabberwock gurgles like old pipes, affronted. "Not _really _dead, of course not, but dead enough to fool the Queen. I need—" Her breath snags on the sharp edges of her throat, and she sways dizzily. "Please, please it's only for a little while and then I'll be able to protect you from her spies and you can come back."

The Jabberwock rocks back on her haunches, considering. Her head snakes down after another breathless moment, and her antenna streaks over Hatter's cheek. Mountains of bone rise in Hatter's mind, and she jerks away before her stomach can heave beyond her control. "You're too big for even your corpse to go through the Looking Glass," Hatter whispers. "She'll send someone to check and I—I can make whoever it is think what they should." The Protocol croons in agreement, but the Jabberwock grinds her toes into the earth, still looking concerned. "It's the best we can do," Hatter adds.

The Jabberwock shakes her head ponderously and raises her clawed hand to her eye. "Don't—" But there's a wet _pop_, and Hatter shrinks away when the Jabberwock shows her the eye, the optic nerve dangling between her fingers. It's nearly the size of Hatter's head. "You didn't have to—" The Protocol whimpers and streaks out of her; another eye grows in the empty socket with a little _slonk_ noise, and the Jabberwock nudges forward with the old one again.

Hatter takes it gingerly; there is surprisingly little blood, but what is there is enough to make her gloves sizzle. She juggles the eye between hands while she pulls them off, but by the time she manages it, they're both full of holes. She'd have to stop by the workshop to find something thick enough to wrap the eye in for transportation to the Heart Palace. "Thank you," she says softly. "I'll find you when it's safe to leave the mountains again, all right?"

She blinks back unexpected tears as she watches the Jabberwock fly away.

* * *

Hatter has been to the Heart Palace before, several times, but it never gets easier. The pall of fear that the Queen drags in her wake is suffocating; she always feels on the point of gagging. She tucks the Jabberwock's eye, wrapped several times in canvas, under her arm, and marches through the swarms of attendants and suits going about their own business.

When she's allowed into the throne room, she wastes no time before laying the eye on the floor and nudging the wrappings away with her foot. "The Jabberwock is dead, your majesty" Hatter says without preamble. The Queen raises an eyebrow. "I lured her close enough to the Looking Glass that the distortion—well, you get the idea."

"I do indeed," the Queen murmurs, venturing closer to examine the eye. "And you brought this as proof?"

"It was the least bloody piece I could find," Hatter says.

"Well, you've outdone yourself, I must say," the Queen says. She sounds impressed, for once. "There is the matter of the bounty—"

It's always a risk to interrupt the Queen, but Hatter's stomach turns over again and she says in a rush, "I don't need or want any money, your majesty. I—if it is not too bold of me to ask, your majesty, the Glassland was my home for years and I-I want to see it restored to its former glory. In your name, of course," she finishes with a little bow.

"I can't think of a better stewardess," the Queen says with a genuine smile.

"You're too kind, your majesty," Hatter mutters. "I am prepared to leave at once, if you wish." She will wait long enough to tell Morris—it is only courteous to let him know that he can find a replacement for her, if that is what he wants.

* * *

By the time she leaves the Heart Palace, the Tea Party is over, and Hatter approaches the table with no small amount of trepidation. Part of her—a larger part than she cares to admit—longs to hurry, to see him again, but she beats it back with the memory of his blood and how much she loved it and his terror of the Protocol and what he must think now that she's turned it against him.

He's still at the table when she arrives at last, and scrubbing dishes with such concentration that he doesn't notice her until she calls his name. The terror in his eyes and the way he holds himself up on the sink drive barbs into her chest, and she takes a shaky breath to remind herself why she must keep this as quick as possible. "I'm leaving," she says, snapping her teeth together on the final syllable to hold in the plea for understanding and for him to stop hurting. It rattles around on her tongue instead.

Morris sways. "What?"

"The Queen wants me to regain control of the Glassland in the wake of the Jabberwock's demise," Hatter tells him. His eyes shutter, and she can't meet them anymore. She stares at the table instead.

"The Jabberwock can't be dead," he says. "You destroyed the Vorpal Sword."

It sounds so much like an accusation that she flinches. "The Queen doesn't know that."

His strangled gurgle shreds right through her. "But you're the _Hatter_," he shouts, and when she dares to look up at him again, fear and anger and betrayal are at war in his face. The betrayal hurts the most. "You belong with the Tea Party," he whispers hoarsely after a moment.

He's right, of course, and the thought of leaving this place and _him_ stings more than Alice ever could, but the Tea Party deserves a much better Hatter than her. Surely he can see that? "I was never right here," she tells him as gently as she knows how. He still winces. "The Glassland is where I came from and I think it's where I need to be." It is the land of monsters, after all.

He shrinks into his coat, and now it's him that can't meet her eyes. "If it's what you think is best, Hatter," he says. "If… if you change your mind, there'll always be a place for you here."

"Tell the fiends for me?" Hatter manages to say around the lump in her throat. Morris nods, his gaze still trained resolutely on his shoes.

There is nothing more to say, so she goes. The Protocol winds around her throat. (_you did the right thing_) it whispers; Hatter nods wearily.


	25. Wonderland: Prologue, 2005

**Part Four: Wonderland**

**Prologue, 2005**

There is a notebook on the table beside her bed: green cover, college-ruled, about the size of a DVD case. Two pens, both black, lie parallel to it, and when she wakes up in the mornings she picks up the nearest one and records her dreams. When Alice was younger, she remembers that they were full of color and just the right amount of danger to be exciting; now that she is grown, they're a confused mix of nightmarish whimsy and little formless shadows that gnaw on her ankles.

She tried sleeping pills, once, and spent the night pursuing a ghost with flaming hair. When she caught up at last, entrails spilled out over her hands and her head rang with screams that came from everywhere and nowhere at once. The bottle has sat untouched on the top of the medicine cabinet since then, but the ghost keeps coming back with mocking laughter that sounds too much like her own.

More than anything she wants a good night's sleep, but coffee and ibuprofen make an acceptable substitute for now.


	26. Wonderland: Citadel

**Citadel**

Although she didn't realize until now, she has known how the citadel will look from the moment she saw the ruins of the Red Castle, as if the knowledge bled straight from the gnarled limbs of the tree there and into her head. For reasons strategic and sentimental, Hatter builds not on the hill, but further toward the sea, where the rath farm used to be.

She borrows stones from the ruined castles to build her foundation. Razor wire coated in her blood is enough to slice them into squares and bleed the color out of them, and the Jabberwock drags them into place to her specifications. The Diamonds send their best technicians at the Queen's behest to string together a skeleton of pipes to carry water and then build her a generator of clockwork at the center of what will become the citadel. She presses her palms against the outer casing, and it thrums like the heartbeat of a Hare.

From there, the citadel grows like a buildup of ice in winter: delicate crystals and sleek mounds of steel and glass that rise together while she sleeps. When it is done, it will be a glittering, artificial tree, with branches enough to imprison her here where she belongs and sap of progress and insurrection.

The fiends try to join her, amassing with eagerness in their eyes, but she turns them away one by one. They belong in the warmth of the Tea Party and the Fractal Forest, not this barren plain with its weak imitations thereof. Some of them ask her to return with them, and her resolve trembles until she hears the clank of machinery or the scream of an irate bandersnatch and remembers why she mustn't.

The Glassland was never this cold in her memory, but she wakes each morning with blocks of ice where her hand should be. She brews herself tea—darjeeling, most days, to remind herself—and caresses the steaming sides of the kettle until she thaws again. The Protocol smooths the blisters away, her skin as malleable as hot wax beneath its web.

The Queen comes to visit when all but the towers are finished, riding on the crest of a wave of servants with smiles as glassy as the one Hatter affixes on her own face. "Welcome, your majesty," she purrs, while the Queen runs a critical eye over the checkered floor and the gleaming new walls. She wonders whether the Queen can feel the mechanical pulse beneath their feet, but the Queen is more sure of her footing, so she must not notice the vibrations sinking teeth into her bones.

"The bandersnatches must be contained," the Queen says. "The new chessmen wish to build a school to train new recruits and I want them out from under my feet when they do. Besides, they belong here."

"Forests don't suit them at all, your majesty," Hatter agrees, bowing. The green flames that devoured the Forest of Names flicker behind her eyelids until she douses them with the ice creeping through her lungs.

The Queen slips an arm through Hatter's and escorts her through the citadel, laying out her list of demands: clean up the Manxsome Marsh, rekindle the Tea Company (she doesn't notice when Hatter twitches), a monument to those killed by the bandersnatch to appease those who remember them fondly (this time she does). "Whatever is wrong, my dear?" she asks, in the tone of an indulgent but impatient mother.

Hatter imagines herself a spine of steel and stone, an extension of the citadel that is strong enough not to collapse when she whispers, "I'll see that it's done, your majesty." There will be a chessboard in the courtyard above the generator, without a plaque or a wall of names; everyone who needs a memorial will know what it when they see it.

The Queen continues in the same vein for some time, and although Hatter can't hear her past the buzzing filling her ears, she nods and chirps out affirmatives when required. When the court leaves, they split in two and the smaller group remains; they are the royal equivalent of a house-warming gift, Hatter supposes. She lets the Protocol slide out of her and rearrange their minds until they belong to her instead of the Queen.

* * *

Hatter carves the monument to the dead from granite harvested from the distant mountains. It takes weeks and she spends whole time perpetually dizzy from blood loss, but the end result is worth it. The chessboard is as wide as her outstretched arms, and when her rewrites maneuver it into place, the citadel pushes iron vines through the stone floor to twine around the base and secure it in place.

The pieces she fashions from glass: cloudily opaque for the Whites, and clear glass stained red for the ones who tried to give her a home. When the sunlight falls through the skylights to hit the chessboard, it casts bloody pools of light along the space between sides.

When it's finished, the captain of the new chessmen comes to see it and murmurs his approval to the rewrite who guided him through the citadel. Hatter doesn't see him in person, but the rewrite delivers his praise, her eyes aglow with manufactured adoration that hardly flickers when Hatter sends her away with a gesture.

Dreams swarm her nightly after that. She sees towers of glass glistening in the sunlight and geometries so straight they make her head pound, spools of ink wasted on lined paper and chaotic swirls of young faces in varying states of derision. Every time, she wakes up with the Protocol humming anxiously around her, but the only explanation it ever offers is simply (_alice_).

She exchanges her mattress for cold stone and loses the ability to sleep at all. Mercury and sleep deprivation breed in her head to conjure hallucinations that even the Protocol cannot shield her from: Morris a glassy-eyed rewrite and brimming over with willingness to do whatever she asks, Morris a bloodless husk at her feet while she rules from a throne at the Tea Party, Morris caressing a blade and his smile as she splits open beneath it. Hatter gropes for him one night, desperate, and he turns to smoke when her fingers find his coat.

The sudden loss presses her into the floor, forces itself between her jaws and streaks down her throat to set her lungs aflame. She writhes, clawing uselessly at her chest until the fire rises into her head and blots out the sensation of pain with the intensity of its light, and for a time she exists in a sea of orange-tinged whiteness. Her limbs are heavier than the rest of her and they sink into the chilly slab she's lying on, and the cold is what draws her back.

Her hands are too numb and jittery to deal with boots, so she leaves the citadel to brave the sand barefoot. Sapped of the sun's heat, the sand is like frost, and soon her teeth are chattering uncontrollably. Hatter wraps her arms around herself and keeps going. She has no aim other than to avoid the Looking Glass, but long-forgotten habit takes her to Lookout Point. The climb seems longer than she remembers; when she reaches the top, she sinks gently sideways. Each breath is a struggle and her legs have turned to lead.

The Jabberwock announces herself with a snapping of sinews as her wings beat the air, and Hatter sighs as she settles with a thump a short distance away and coils her tail to block the worst of the wind from where Hatter is lying. The reprieve is enough for her to roll over so she isn't breathing sand. She runs her tongue along her teeth to taste the blood that started to leak from her gums at some point during the climb, and the sharp, metallic taste warms her enough to think properly.

"Could you do something about the bandersnatches, soon?" Hatter murmurs. "I could open a vein into some buckets and you could poison the frumiage until they're back to their old range and numbers." The Jabberwock burbles, and her antenna prods Hatter's shoulder. "Or you could spit on them," Hatter concedes grudgingly. "You're less poisonous than me, though."

The Jabberwock nudges again, growling. The stench of rotting bandersnatch fills Hatter's nostrils, so overpowering that her eyes water. "It still takes more time," she says. Allowing things to be gradual will only increase the likelihood that she will slip and return to Wonderland; she must keep busy if she expects to keep her resolve. This time, the Jabberwock sends her an image of herself, twisted on the sand. It's startling, how much like a wax figurine she looks, but the Jabberwock is no more immune to exaggeration than anyone else. "I'm fine," she whispers.

The lie crushes her windpipe and her vision turns to static while she tries to remember how to breathe, and it strikes her suddenly how exhausted she is. She nuzzles against the Jabberwock's tail, and the roughness that scrapes her cheek raw is the perfect pillow. Sleep comes not with a fall but an abrasion.

* * *

Wakefulness comes with a thick scab that covers the side of her face and burns like a scalding when she rips it off. The Jabberwock is gone, but Hatter can see her trundling along the edge of the bandersnatch runs and the trails of smoke rising up where her spittle charred the frumiage. As she watches, a bandersnatch charges, and the Jabberwock swats it away with a flick of her tail. It collapses like splintering wood.

Hatter scrunches her toes in the sand until she's certain she's well enough to stand up on her own. She goes down by way of the ex-Forest of Names. Pieces of it have eroded away where the Jabberwock destroyed any new growth that might have come naturally. Slivers of wood impale her feet, and she stops every few steps to remove them before they can dissolve fully. Her cheek stings worse than ever.

The Protocol stirs in her mind. (_are you better now?_) it asks, almost timidly. A tendril of it strokes her cheek, cool and soothing, and the lacerations close one by one. (_i tried and tried to fix it but you kept moving and cutting it open again_)

"You should have left it," Hatter murmurs, touching the new skin. "Like when I was Red and…" The words she wants elude her, so she trails into silence punctuated only by her footsteps and the Protocol's anxious, wordless whimper.

The captain of the new chessmen is waiting for her at the citadel. It is the first time Hatter has seen him up close; he's tall and thickset and for all that he wears a bishop's cap, he looks nothing like the chessmen she remembers. "What can I do for you?" she asks. Her smile feels like shards of porcelain slicing into her mouth.

"Well, some of my men noticed—they were outside for training with clubs this morning, you understand, and they all swear up and down they saw the Jab—" Hatter flicks her hand in disgust, and the Protocol arcs forward to cut the appropriate thoughts out of his head before streaking away to do the same to the others who had noticed. The captain blinks several times, looking confused. "Where was I?"

Hatter pastes on another smile even more false than the last. "You were just telling me about the new renovations to the knight school," she chirps.

He brightens. "Ah, yes. Forgive me, I don't know what came over me." Hatter makes a go-on gesture and he clears his throat importantly. "We've had a lot of new applicants since opening the school, and I've discussed it with the board and we thought it might be best to build a new facility to accommodate them all—"

She keeps smiling and lets him prattle on about the blueprints that she has already seen from the last time he told her nearly a week ago. When he leaves, he'll return to his office to find the papers she signed that day; the Protocol will take care of any confusion he feels then and they will both be more vigilant when the Jabberwock is out and about.

* * *

Hatter lets three more days pass in glacially slow repetition before she admits to herself that this isn't working; Wonderland calls to her whenever she stops moving, its song reverberating in her head too loudly to be drowned out with mere words. She awakes one morning to find the walls of her bedroom etched with trees: tulgey and oak and sycamore and chestnut, their branches intertwined where the walls met the ceiling, which itself is a patchwork of leaves. Hatter traces the lines of bark, frowning when the lines carved into the metal prove duller than they appear.

If she goes on like this, it's only a matter of time before homesickness—can it be homesickness if she doesn't truly have a home?—wins out. She flounders for something to do and ends up deconstructing the generator piece by piece. The citadel frosts over nightly without the electricity to power the heat systems, and she considers leaving the pieces strews around the generator room until they all freeze to death.

Without its heart, the citadel begins to rot; Hatter can hear the metal creaking as it prepares to collapse on itself. She rebuilds the generator piece by piece, and when it is back together again it clicks away as if it had never been interrupted, and Hatter backs away guiltily, resolved to leave it in piece. Her fingers still itch for the clean lines of machinery and combustion, though, so she sends a rewrite to the Diamonds to bring her books and raw material so she can make something of her own, something that won't hurt to build and destroy and recreate anew.


	27. Wonderland: Relapse

**Relapse**

He takes it slowly, by minutes and inches. He shuffles a little on the table, and from this new angle he can't see the gaping wound where _she _ought to be; he breathes (in-out, another second clicks past), and remembers that he did this alone for years before _she _came to sweep them all away. It is like descending from a mountain, each step carrying him further from the magnificent heights of the peak, but he can't climb back up because if he stops to turn around, he will slip and the fall will be his undoing.

And it hurts, it _hurts_, and he has to breathe in shallow gasps to keep his chest from seizing up. Something is gone; he can feel the absence pricking along his retinas where he overstepped some boundary and now that part of him is gone forever. Whatever he did, it was bad enough to drive her from the Tea Party—or maybe she simply realized what the Protocol knew all along and decided that a clean break would be best. He clings to that thought, because he can't imagine doing anything to hurt her on purpose.

At the end of the first month, he lets his feet carry him to her house. The windows are shuttered and when he tries the door, it's locked, but he stands on the stoop while the minutes tick by, afraid to let go lest the reality of her absence sweep him out to sea.

The fading light glints off of something when he finally turns to leave, and he sidles off the path to see what it is. The earth between her house and her workshop is disturbed, and he crouches down and parts the grass around the spot to see better. A tiny sprout of clear glass, no bigger than his fist, winks back at him. He reaches out to touch the stem, incredulous, and finds it bends like a real plant beneath his finger, the minuscule bud on the end of it glittering as it moves. This is like nothing he's ever heard of before, which means it must be something of Hatter's—she breaks rules as easily as she draws people to her.

Morris lets the grass spring back into place around the living glass and backs away, feeling like an intruder on sacred grounds. There's another Hare waiting for him at home, looking irritated. "The Elders want to know who's going to replace her," the Hare says shortly.

"No one," Morris snaps. "She's still alive and still the Hatter even if she isn't—isn't here." He balls his hands into fists, and the pressure of his nails against his palms helps him keep his head clear. "It isn't her fault the Queen demanded this of her, and there's no reason she can't fulfill orders in the Glassland and I can cover for the rest of the Tea Party while she's—not here."

The other Hare is silent, and Morris glares at him until he shrugs. "'snot really my business," he says. "But it seems like a lot of work for you."

"I don't care." Morris folds his arms; he refuses to be the one to take her name away and he promised there would always be a place at the table for her. "You have my answer. There's not going to be a replacement. So clear off."

The Hare leaves, and Morris stomps inside, scowling at nothing. There's a sick, sucking feeling in his stomach and his imagination conjures up possibility after possibility for why she might have left and what she might have taken from him, each more awful than the last: she realized how terrible he is at his job, or he snapped at her or made her cry or attacked her, or she changed more than he thought and they were never friends but she made him think they were out of retribution. That one drives him out of his stupor to rifle through his old notes, to find any hint of her among his records of teas bought and tasted and Family business.

She is there more often than she ought to be, little scribbled notes in the margins about clever things she said or quick sketches of her questions and sighs or the tapping of her nails against porcelain or sometimes just _her_. His memories of—of caring for her are trustworthy, at least, but this tells him nothing of how she felt and he curses his past self for not taking more detailed accounts of their time together.

"Hatter's not coming back, is she?" The voice belongs to a tiny field mouse named Molly, but it takes Morris a few seconds to recognize it beneath the thick silvery film of timidity. She peeks at him over the rim of her miniature teacup, her nose twitching anxiously.

Morris forces himself to smile. "Of course she will," he whispers, his voice little more than a wisp of smoke. "When she's done with the work the Queen gave her. She—" he licks his lips, which have been dry and chapped since the day he found the hole in his memory. "—she would have stayed to say goodbye in person, but you all know how the Queen can be when she wants something."

The fiends nod miserably. "But they say she's building a city," Molly says. "It's not going to be soon, is it?" He can't keep lying to them, so he shakes his head.

Another fiend—a magpie who's never offered a name—pipes up. "I saw it," he says. "A few days ago. She's got the foundation down already and the Diamonds were everywhere while I was there." He flutters his wings nervously. "She told me not to stay, though."

There is a general clamor after that, because if she doesn't want them to even visit her, then how can they be sure she'll come back at all? The fires of anger burn away the fog still drifting through Morris's thoughts, and he shouts until they can hear him again. "She's going to come back," he growls. It was selfish of him to think he would be the only one hurt by her absence—maybe selfish of her, too. "There's an explanation and I—" he takes a deep breath. "After this party I'll go to the Glassland and find out what it is."

She'll understand; it's for the fiends.

* * *

The selfish, cowardly part of him wants to stay safely in Wonderland, but he promised the fiends. The whine of the scarab's engine bores into his ears while he searches through the borderlands for the Looking Glass; at last he gives up and searches on foot, and finds it at last in a puddle. He jumps through and the world twists away from him; when he lands, it's in the middle of a flowerbed overflowing with weeds.

He struggles to his feet to take stock of his surroundings; he's in the gardens outside the House, and they're a curious mix of decay and new growth. In the distance, he can see gardeners pulling weeds and coaxing the remaining flowers back to life. He hurries along the twisted paths until he finds a worker willing to point him in the direction of the citadel.

Despite the magpie's words, the citadel has progressed far beyond foundations. The towers are still unfinished but for scaffolding, but enough of it is complete that Morris can see what it will look like when it's done even from across the board. As he gets closer, he notices the details that make it a work of art: delicate, suspended pathways between buildings, thin iron veins running through windows shaped like leaves. He dares to run a hand over the outer wall, surprised to find it warm and textured like tree bark.

At first he wanders through the world Hatter built for herself. There are rewrites with empty eyes and smiles like the trajectory of an axe trotting from place to place with purposes he can only guess at, and once he sees a Ten of Diamonds weaving copper wire into the walls. One of the rewrites notices him finally, and asks what he wants.

"I need to see the Hatter," he says meekly, while the rewrite stares at a point just over his left shoulder. "If she isn't too busy to see me, of course."

The rewrite takes his hand without a word and leads him through an archway of braided steel and colored glass. He has to jog to keep up as they speed through a courtyard—the floor vibrates beneath the soles of his shoes and he catches a glimpse of an enormous chessboard made of polished granite before they turn again into a narrow passage between buildings.

The passage switches back on itself and slopes upwards to a tight spiral of stairs. There is no railing, and Morris keeps his free hand on the center column as they climb. Eventually they reach a tiny landing and the rewrite gestures at the large door leading inside. The oxidized copper of an artificial _Camellia sinensis_ grows from the base and up along the frosted glass panels until the leaves flow into handles, and it's so beautiful and delicate that Morris is hesitant to touch it.

"She's inside," the rewrite says, perhaps mistaking his hesitation for uncertainty. He turns the handle; the rough surface rubs pleasantly beneath his fingertips, and the door swings inwards with a whisper of oiled hinges.

He freezes there in the doorway, because _she _really is there, framed by the panes of a huge window that overlooks the courtyard he just passed through. The familiar smell of wool grease and damp felt washes over him, and his gaze darts away from her for a heartbeat to take in the rows of blocks and half-finished hats that line the walls.

"Morris." Violet threads through the room and he almost whimpers in relief as the color he's missed so badly curls around him, but the edges are frayed and stained almost black. "Morris, what—what are you _doing _here?"

He looks up at her, wincing. Her jaw works furiously even when she isn't speaking; the urge to slide his thumb over it until she relaxes is startling in its intensity. "It's about the fiends," he says quickly, before she can get too angry with him or ruin her teeth. She waits for him to continue, her hands fluttering against the felt she was working when he came in. "They—they're worried you aren't coming back." His neck heats up like a kettle.

Hatter goes quite still. "You haven't replaced me yet?"

The words fall like physical blows, but he isn't sure whether it's because she expected that he would or _could _find another hatter who could fill her place, or the spread of navy blue that accompanies the question that hurts most. "N- did you want me to?" He hates how like a frightened child he sounds as much as he hates how she turns away.

She shudders when she breathes in. "I thought you would," she whispers. "I thought—I thought—"

"If… you want me to…" Morris drags his teeth over his lip to steel himself for what he's about to say. "I don't think there could ever be a Hatter like you, but if you don't—I could try to find someone new, if you don't want to be…"

"The fiends still want me there?" she asks, in a very small voice. It swirls around her head like a sunhat, but extends no further.

"Why wouldn't they?"

Her hands twist against each other, her fingers braiding in and out of each other. He watches them dance because it's easier than seeing the indecision on her face. "Would… you like to see the rest of the citadel?" she says after a moment, like she's fumbling for each word through darkness.

Anything to prolong his time here, with her. "If it's not too much trouble," he says, half-hoping that she'll take his hand like the rewrite did when she leads him back out of the workshop. She doesn't, of course, and he chides himself for the thought.

"It's very beautiful," he says softly after they've descended the stairs in silence.

"The Tea Party is beautiful, Morris," she says. "The Fractal Forest is beautiful. This will be a weapon and a prison and that is anything but—" She strangles to silence, and he falls a step or two behind so she can compose herself. It doesn't look like a prison to him, and if it _is_ a weapon it is the delicate sharp kind that fits seamlessly between ribs and gleams invitingly in the light.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs.

Hatter sighs. "You did nothing wrong. I'm glad you like it."

She shows him her citadel, beginning with the actual prison that manages to be lovely no matter what she says to the contrary. There are cages of steel with silver cores; the silver protrudes every inch or so in vicious little barbs that will, she says, be electrified when the wiring is finished. A web of interconnected corridors spreads out from the main room, all leading eventually to an upper chamber that will be used for executions, should they become necessary. The Protocol seems to have made the chamber a second home; Morris can see the strands of it curling around the iron vines that form the window frames. They stir languidly as he traces the paths they follow into Hatter's head, and the empty space in his memories itches ferociously.

He gnaws the inside of his cheek while she leads him through the library. Even here, there is no wood; the shelves are glass threaded through with metal, painted by the light falling through stained skylights. There aren't many books, yet, but she tells him quietly of her plans to acquire more as they wander through the stacks. From there, she takes him up to the network of high pathways that lead from terrace to terrace to, sometimes, roof. Most of them have no railings, and she lets him cling to her forearm while they cross over the distant alleys. "Has anyone ever fallen?" he asks, when they return to the relative safety of an internal hallway through a housing block.

"No," Hatter says. "The Diamonds have special harnesses and the rewrites know it wouldn't please me for them to fall." She says nothing about herself, and his stomach contracts painfully with worry.

His tour ends with the tallest tower, which rests in the precise center of the rest. A forest is carved along the walls, the ceiling thick with artificial foliage so real he's surprised to learn that the individual leaves he can pick out are nothing but flat etchings. "How on earth have you done all this in a month?" he asks, awed.

Hatter looks away, her hands trembling even after she knits her fingers together to hide it. "It started growing by itself after the first week," she says. "I didn't tell it to do this, I swear—I just—I woke up and it was—"

"It's incredible," he breathes, leaning closer to the walls to inspect the wildflowers that sprout between roots. When he tilts his head, the movement of shadows gives the illusion of plants swaying in the breeze. "I thought that tree you left behind was something, but _this_…"

"What tree?"

"The one growing between th-the workshop and your… old house," Morris says. A crease forms between Hatter's eyebrows, and he shrinks back into his coat, terrified that he's just shattered the tenuous peace between them. "The one made of glass? It's just a little sapling right now, barely this big—" He holds his hands a few inches apart to demonstrate, but lets them fall when her frown deepens.

"I didn't know about that," she says at last.

"I thought it must be from you," Morris mumbles while his cheeks heat up. "No one else could make a glass tree work."

That really is the wrong thing to say; Hatter's eyes shutter and her shoulders go rigid. "I can have a bed made up for you so you won't have to travel back in the dark. And then—keep me updated on the Hearts and the Tea Party." He imagines she stumbles over the final syllables.

"Of course. Thank you." She turns to leave him, moving jerkily. "Will I see you again soon?" he blurts out—for the fiends, it has to be for the fiends.

The frail, indigo bubble of noise that she makes twists his heart; he's certain that it isn't his imagination this time and it means he just hurt her without realizing _again_. "No," she says, and he hunkers even deeper into his coat. "I don't. I don't think that would be a very good idea."

She flees before he can respond, and he stands with a bitter taste welling up beneath his tongue until a rewrite arrives to lead him to his temporary bedroom.

* * *

He has been home for barely two days when the knock comes on his door, short taps in a frenetic pattern that he's had memorized for years, and he stumbles through the darkness of his living room to answer it. The door swings toward him and she falls after it with a splintery sound that sears his eyes with blue and scarlet. "_Hatter_," he says in greeting, and she sags a little more into his chest and he can pretend, for a moment, that she's as relieved to see him as he is her.

"It hurts," she whimpers. He curses himself for hiding the jasmine away in a cabinet—it stung too much to keep it out for her when he knew she'd never come—because now it will be that much longer for her to suffer.

She twists into a knot on the couch and he flies to the kitchen for the kettle and the tin of jasmine, the brittle snapping of her choked screams rattling around in his head. By the time he returns her face is stretched in a silent grimace, and he's not even sure she can hear him when he brings the cup to her mouth and murmurs for her to drink.

It takes too long before she stops twitching, and by then there is so much jasmine in her that he isn't surprised when she falls asleep in his lap. He knows he ought to wake her and make sure she gets back to the Glassland safely, but instead he loses himself in the even, pale laurel-green of her breathing.

Hatter is still there when he wakes in the morning, looking drawn and pale and listing to the side as she sits next to him, clearly still in pain. She shakes her head when he offers to brew her more jasmine, and he's just gotten up to put away the tin and clean out the cup and the kettle when she whispers, "I didn't mean to come."

Morris scrabbles to keep hold of the tea things when he flinches. "Oh."

"It just—hurt so much—" Hatter sniffles, and he puts everything down and sits next to her in case she decides she needs a hug. He tries not to be too disappointed when she leans away instead. "And I was so cold."

Building her citadel out of metal probably didn't help much for that, but Morris refrains from saying so. It will only make things worse. "Why don't you stay for the Tea Party?" he asks. "The fiends would love to see you and tea always makes you feel better." His heart flutters fast as a hummingbird's wings when she mutters an affirmative.

"I won't be much good, I don't think," she says. "I don't feel up to standing."

"That's fine, Hatter," Morris tells her firmly. "It's all fine. You can sit and drink and I'll do all the work." It's what he does anyway and she must know that already, so he doesn't mention it aloud.

* * *

Hatter sits in his house and stares at her hands for the rest of the morning; Morris deems it best to let her be and not to press his luck. She barely reacts when he tells her he's going to slip out for a moment or two around one o'clock, and his heart clenches a little. One of the fiends is perched in the tree above the table, singing one of the Mock Turtle's dirges, but she quiets immediately and flutters down to a lower branch when he beckons. "The Hatter's here," he tells her. "She's staying for the Tea Party, but she isn't feeling well—mercury—if you could spread the word?"

The fiend hops along the branch in excitement. "Of course! Everyone will be so excited!" she says before launching herself into the air. Morris glances back toward his house, wondering if Hatter is still brooding inside or if she's taking advantage of his absence to make herself tea. He's sure she would be more comfortable in her own home, but she hasn't said anything and as long as she doesn't complain, he's content to let her stay.

He hurries along the path to her house anyway, to check on the glass tree. Like the citadel, it's been growing unnaturally fast, and by now it is nearly waist-high and as thick as his wrist. The first slender branches have unfurled, too; yesterday Morris found a leaf, paper-thin and clear as water. Today, it is joined by another, equally perfect. They clink against each other in the faint breeze, and Morris sits in the grass for a while, watching the light refract through the trunk.

"Where did you come from?" he asks it. Trees rarely speak in Wonderland, so he isn't really expecting an answer, but it feels nice to be able to question things aloud without fear of reprisal.

Normally, Morris would stay longer, but today he has Hatter to attend to and his thoughts keep circling around to her presence. She is so _close_, is the thing; when she is on the other side of the Looking Glass, it's easier to remember that she left because she wanted to.

Hatter is exactly where he left her, still curled up on his couch. Her eyes are closed, but she turns her head toward him when she hears the door shut. "I'm back," he says, quite unnecessarily but it's worth the faint smile that she offers before returning her attention to her hands.

"I can't see," she says after a moment.

A lump rises in his throat and he wars with himself over whether to touch her shoulder. The contact might make her feel better, but she has made it more than clear that she doesn't want him around if there are any other options. "It'll pass," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's the mercury that does it."

When it's time for the Tea Party a few hours later, she's still blind enough that she accepts his help in getting to the table. He focuses on where she's putting her feet so he won't have to watch how she cringes away even when she's clutching his arm for support. "I can fly you home in the scarab, after, if you want," he says weakly as he settles her in her chair. She digs her fingers into the armrest, hard enough to puncture the threadbare upholstery.

"That would be best, I think," she whispers through lips that seem reluctant to part enough to let the sound out. Morris nods even though she can't see it and goes to prepare the tea.

The fiends are delighted to see her, and she sounds happy to be with them. Perhaps it is he and not her who should be replaced, so she could be in the place she so obviously loves and the Tea Party could go on as it ought to. Morris has no idea what he'd do with himself if he were no longer the March Hare, but the idea lodges in his head with such obstinacy that he knows he'll have to suggest it, at least, or it'll never leave him alone.

Her vision, she says, has mostly cleared by the end of the Tea Party, and she climbs into the scarab without his assistance. "I'm going to build a tank," she says, as they leave the ground behind.

"What for?"

"Bandersnatches." She offers no more information than that, and Morris twiddles his thumbs against the controls gearshift nervously.

"Hatter?"

She keeps staring straight ahead. "Yes?"

"Would it make you happy if I wasn't the March Hare?" he asks, tripping over the words in his haste to get this over with. Now Hatter does look at him, eyes wide. "I mean, if—if I'm the only thing keeping you from the Tea Party—"

"_No_," she says, with such vehemence that he jumps and the scarab drops a few feet as the movement upsets the controls. She waits for him to level the scarab out again before she continues. "That's not it at all, Morris, and the fiends need you."

"They need you, too," Morris says.

Hatter turns her attention back to the windshield. "Stay with the Tea party," she says.

"Of course."

They find the Looking Glass quickly enough, and Morris can't drag his eyes away from the snarl of the Protocol taking up the space where the reflection of the scarab ought to be. "You can drop me off here," Hatter says. "I'm well enough to walk back."

Morris watches until she's safely through the Looking Glass before maneuvering the scarab away again. He goes back to the Tea Party and gathers up the dirtied dishes, ignoring the way his hands shake while he guides them into the sink. It isn't until he opens the cabinets in search of soap that he sees the ratty grey dishcloth that was always her favorite and which still hangs from its usual hook because he hasn't been able to bring himself to remove it.

His knees turn to water and he barely feels the impact when he sinks uselessly into the grass. The fragile stability he had before crumbles, and what is left is the certainty that she isn't coming back again because whatever she found in the Glassland is more important to her than the Tea Party, so this is what she wants and this is how it's going to be. He's not sure he can handle having her back and losing her a few hours later if she visits again, but he's going to have to find a way to get up and do the dishes because that is the last thing he's any good for.

He climbs up again and scrubs furiously at his eyes with his sleeve; crying in the dishwater isn't going to help anything.

"You're a wreck, cousin," someone drawls behind him—not _some_one, Morris would know that silver corkscrew of a voice anywhere, and when he turns toward the source, Franco is indeed standing by the table, his arms folded, looking disdainful.

"Franco," Morris says, more stiffly than he intends. "What are you doing here?"

His old friend kicks at a loose piece of sod. "I came to apologize," he mutters.

Morris stares at him. "Oh." Franco doesn't appear to have anything more to say. "After—after twenty years?"

Franco shrugs. "Better late?" he suggests.

"It's not as if you did anything," Morris says. He plunges his hands into water that's still too hot, but he can't work out what to do with them otherwise. "I'm the one that cheated. Which I'm sorry for." At least this time he knows what to apologize for.

For a long time, Franco says nothing. Then his footsteps make a line of dark-grey slashes along Morris's eyes and, before Morris can react, Franco seizes him by the shoulder and spins him away from the sink. "Why are you letting her _do _this to you?" he demands, with a shake that rattles Morris's teeth.

Morris shoves him away and yanks his waistcoat back into something resembling order. "Hatter didn't do anything to me," he says.

"Bullshit." Franco jabs a finger into his chest. "You aren't the one who picked up and left with no warning, you aren't the one locking yourself away in fucking Looking Glass Land instead of _doing your damn job_, so don't—you—dare—try to blame yourself for this one—"

"Shut up," Morris snarls, his hands clenching of their own accord.

Franco laughs hollowly. "I'm only saying what everyone knows. Except you."

"_I_ hurt _her_," Morris says, taking a shaky breath and forcing himself to relax. Or he would have hurt her, which is somehow worse. Franco just sneers.

"Then she should have acted like a grown-up instead of throwing a tantrum and running off to do Dodgson-knows-what—"

"I said _shut up_!" Shivery rage is building in his chest again, though he's not sure if he's more likely to throw a punch and destroy whatever scrap of remorse prompted Franco to come here today or burst into tears. "If you can't hold your tongue, then leave. Now. Go back to the scrape or wherever you're living these days and let me do my job, since you're so concerned about that."

Franco's eyes narrow, but he doesn't argue, just storms away. Morris's attempt to glare after him falls rather flat.


	28. Wonderland: Isolating

**Isolating**

Hatter builds herself another chessboard, equally as large as the one memorializing her past victims. This one, she carves from tulgey wood, and the shavings fill her workshop with the comforting smell of caramel. It reminds her enough of the Tea Party in early summer, when the tulgey trees bloom, to anchor her here in the Glassland.

She carves a map onto the surface of the board before she stains the squares, and when it's finished, she steals the queenside red knight from the memorial in the courtyard below. Sending the piece on a tour through her artificial Wonderland isn't enough to release her of her longing to return again, but the challenge of finding the right path is something to pass the time.

Every day at four o'clock, she locks herself in the workshop and huddles beneath the board, surrounded by half-finished hats and the scattered pieces of what will become the tank's engine. She drinks—the tea always tastes saltier, here—and when she is lucky, the mercury that oils her synapses will conjure ghosts of the real thing for her amusement.

On those days she can almost laugh again, although the sound strains to burst straight from her chest and drags claws along the lining of her throat, and Hatter clutches her hallucinations close until they trickle away through her fingers again. Inevitably, it ends with tea pooling on the floor and the click-click-click of a single knight forging its solitary way across the board.

* * *

Two weeks after the last time she saw Morris outside of her own malfunctioning brain circuitry, the citadel is officially finished and the last of the work crews go home. Hatter dares to allow herself a moment's respite from the workshop that she has barely left in the interim, and moves into her little-used office to sift through the paperwork that has built up since her relapse. There's a stack of order forms and invoices wobbling ominously on the desk, as well as an edict or two sent from the Heart Palace. Hatter sets them aside for later perusal and has just begun her attack on the paper tower when a rewrite glides through the open doorway.

"There's a Hare in the receiving room demanding to see you, Hatter," he says.

Hatter's stomach plummets while her heart leaps, and the vacuum the two leave behind makes her dizzy. "Morris—" she begins, hoping and hating herself for it, but the rewrite shakes his head and she sinks slowly back into her chair.

"I didn't recognize him," he says. "Shall I direct him to the rewriting room?"

"No." He might be a friend of Morris's or any number of things. "Send him in. I'll see him."

The rewrite nods and scrambles to obey, and Hatter gets up to collect herself and wait. Not a minute later, the Hare slams into the room with a snarl plastered on his face—so he must be Morris's friend after all—and stomps closer until he's mere inches away. "What did you _do_ to him?" he growls. Each word slides between her ribs like a knife.

Morris did seem eager to get rid of her after the Tea Party, but she'd assumed he was merely angry that she'd stumbled into his house uninvited, and not— "He's still hurting?" she whispers.

The Hare slaps her, and there's a ringing silence throughout the office. She can feel the rewrite still lingering in the doorway waiting for her to spring and destroy her attacker and the white-hot pain in her cheek and the Protocol shrieking and she breathes and the air is silvers of glass and droplets of acid.

She sags back against the desk, slowly, while the Hare quivers with rage.

"How dare you?" he hisses. "How _dare _you ask that after _you _decided it would be funny to break him?! He _cared _about himself before you got your claws into him! You may have _them_ fooled—" he jabs a finger back at the rewrites, "—but _I _can see right through you."

Something shatters behind her eyes, and she isn't sure if it's water or blood that leaks out. The Hare is still screaming, gathering speed and volume, but she can't hear the words over the ringing in her ears and the effort of holding the Protocol back because she knows she deservesthis—no matter what she does, she only makes things worse.

"I'm sorry!" The words drag out of her like fish-hooks yanking out of her flesh, and the Hare freezes; she can see the disgust warring with utter loathing in his eyes. He turns on his heel and storms out the way he came, and she flings herself after him, begging. "Tell him I'm sorry!" she screams. "Tell him—_please—_"

He slams the door behind him so hard that the hinges rattle.

* * *

Hatter stares at the closed door until the rewrite asks, in the sickly-sweet tone of one whose reason for living is upset, "Is there anything I—"

"You can _leave,_" Hatter snarls, lashing at him with her fingernails and the Protocol. His jaw slackens as he wrestles with the door-handle, and then while he dribbles away down the corridor, Hatter lets her legs do the same and she slips down the frame. The metal floor leeches what little heat there is in her legs, but she welcomes the sensation; it helps her to think.

"Would it be so bad if we told him?" she asks. The Protocol weaves through her hair, murmuring wordlessly. "If we—If he—"

(_he hates me, you know that_) the Protocol says. It tugs at her ear and whimpers. (_what do you think he would do if he knew that you hurt him and used him and then let me wipe out the memories?_)

"He might—" Hatter begins, without much hope.

(_he's so distant already, isn't he?_) The Protocol twitches, deep in the back of her mind, and a wisp of silver mist takes form on her knee, cycling from songbird to salamander to serpent. She drags her hands through it, and the mist dissipates with a little croon. (_the truth is a dangerous thing_)

Hatter lets her head thunk back against the wall, too hard because it sends spikes of light through her eyes. "But this isn't _working_. It was for a while, and then—if I have another attack like that one—"

The Protocol growls. (_you won't, you won't—_)

"You can't stop them anymore than I can," Hatter snaps. The silvery mist forms again, human-shaped this time, but she bats away the incorporeal hand it stretches toward her and rubs her eyes until the rest of it fades. "I don't know what to _do_."

(_if you want him not to feel pain, i can make it happen_) the Protocol says after a long silence. (_this will be the way it's always been, and he won't suffer for what never happened_)

Hatter laughs bitterly. "Because that worked so well the last time. No."

(_this way he will only fester and rot until_—)

"I said no!" She slumps a little more.

(_why_?) There's no malice in the question, only curiosity, but Hatter isn't sure she knows the answer so it feels like an attack anyway.

"Because then— then—" She searches for the right words so frantically that for a few seconds she can't breathe, and when they come at last it's sluggishly and still not quite right. "Because then he'd be gone from me."

(_he already is_) the Protocol points out.

"Maybe if I begged," Hatter whispers. The Protocol doesn't answer, but Morris the last time she'd seen him blots out all other thoughts—his gaze hollow and horrified, and the way his hands shook when he had to touch her. She buries her head in her hands and presses her palms into her eyes until the pressure rips holes in the memory. "I know—I _know_—but I need—"

(_you want_) the Protocol says tartly. (_i need you and you need me because we are parts of the same whole, but he is just a thing to keep you warm_)

"That's not true!"

The Protocol hums, clearly amused by her protest. (_then what is he?_)

As much as she hates to admit it, the Protocol has a point. Morris is not her friend—she proved herself unfit for friendship—and he is not her partner—she thrust the bulk of her responsibilities onto his, admittedly more capable, shoulders. Hatter took from him without ever offering anything worthwhile in return—only pain and inconvenience.

(_like a vacuum_) the Protocol adds helpfully.

She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. If she concentrates she can hear the generator humming, too fast for a real heart. Perhaps that is why it's less soothing than she hoped when the comparison first occurred to her. "I miss him." The Protocol hums and caresses her shoulder blades in time with the generator, and Hatter sighs. "That's why I have to stay here, isn't it?"

(_if you want him to be safe_)

Hatter thinks of blood coursing from his mouth, of his fist tight around her heart while his skin bubbles and peels away from her blood, the triumph in his eyes tinged with the Protocol's touch. She stands up and goes to finish the paperwork.


	29. Wonderland: Illness

**Illness**

Mekath is infused with the powdered caps of the Agate Bolete, native to Rilchiam and harvested with the assistance of a gas mask and thick gloves. Brewed too strongly, it gains a poisonous blue sheen and stops being safe to drink. Morris has only over-brewed the tea twice before—and the first time didn't count, since it happened in his apprenticeship because Haigha wanted to make sure he knew how to recognize when it was unsafe.

He stares into the thin layer of tea in cup for a long time, watching the blue swirling perpendicular to the steam. Just breathing it in is enough to make him dizzy. The rest of the pot is gone already, sucked down the drain with a bucket of water to dilute it. Even correctly brewed, mekath has the strongest kick Morris has ever experienced, a biting tartness that numbs the lips and tongue and throat on the way down. No one sane drinks the overpowering kind.

Morris tips the cup over the sink and the poisonous liquid dribbles out, but not before he takes the tiniest of sips. It tastes of under-ripe strawberries and lemon peels, and when it hits the back of his throat it turns to soured milk and makes his eyes water.

He makes it halfway through the Tea Party before getting wrapped up in the warmth his own body radiates. The ground cocoons around him and he drifts on an ocean of color; he thinks vaguely that it might be sound, but there are none of the crisp shapes he is used to, just shimmery smears oozing through what little remains of his body while he shivers.

_She _is there—a shadow, a burst of light—perforating the haze above and around him with teeth and claws that are sharper than he remembers; her hair falls into his eyes while she worries at his clavicle with her teeth. He begs—_hatterpleasehatterneedyouhatterhatterhatter—_and she, in mercy, acquiesces, with a hand forced down his throat and into his chest.

He gags when she draws out his heart, but the discomfort is fleeting and even the hollow ache in the chasm she left behind is worth her hand caressing his cheek, tracing his lips and eyes and sliding down to stroke down his neck and over his chest. His heart beats feebly in her grasp—it doesn't matter _doesn't matter_ because this is still an embrace and she coos in pleasure as she samples the weakening muscle—her tongue flicking over the severed aorta, puncturing the ventricles with needlelike teeth. The blood trickles down her chin and falls into his eyes, and his vision dims and dims and dims until there's nothing but the whorls of dark-red and rust.

A violet streak cuts into him like a knife through warm butter, and his heart beats and beats and beats so loud he can barely hear himself calling for her to take it again because he must be dying—that's the only way his mind could conjure such a perfect imitation.

Pieces of ice glide over his forehead and he struggles to focus on something besides the blurry swells of noise; he finds a shadowy impression of a silhouette that he knows even better than his own, and he tries and tries to speak around a leaden tongue that is too large for his mouth.

She speaks and his whole world is violet fading to navy at the edges, and he trembles and whimpers and reaches blindly because if he can only _touch _her than maybe it will make it real, and then a frigid hand weaves through his and he flops back into the nest of blankets, because she will anchor him enough to sleep without slipping too far away to come back.

* * *

He swims up a river of blue and gold until he reaches a still, quiet pool through which he can hear strands of words that glide through his fingers like minnows. "Drink," she says, and her voice refracts through the clear water, sparkling. He obeys and finds that his throat is parched, so when the water laps at his mouth he sucks greedily until it pulls away again.

"Hatter…" his throat is raw and crackly and his lungs can barely squeeze out enough air to make the syllables audible, but she hears him anyway.

"I'm here." Hatter touches his shoulder, and he curls toward her hand, smiling even though there isn't a single part of him that doesn't ache. "You're going to be fine, Morris, I promise," she whispers.

"I dreamed—" it seems vital that he tell her, though he can't think why and it feels like the lining of his throat is blistering and splitting open with every sound. "Hatter—"

She shushes him, and for one wild moment he imagines that her lips brush over his forehead before he realizes that it's her hand and she's gauging the heat rolling off of him. "Just rest," she whispers. Morris whimpers when she withdraws her hand. "The worst of it's over now."

It hurts to keep his eyes open, and when he tries to reach for her hand so he won't slip away too far, all that happens is his fingers twitch. "You'll stay?" He looks up at her, desperate to convey how much he wants—he wants—

"Of course, if you want me to," Hatter says. Her hand weaves through his; he can feel the tremors rebounding up his arm and hates how comforting he finds the sensation.

"Stay," he murmurs again. Hatter hums out a concession, and he lets the purple breeze sweep him away.

For a while, he drifts and the currents carry him where they may; Hatter traces spirals of frost along his arms, but she drifts away from him in the end, and he shudders with the loss. _Come back, come back_—he begs in his mind, and although his tongue refuses to obey him, she hears.

Her hand presses into his sternum as she draws patterns down from his forehead with her mouth—each kiss sears his skin into crystals of ice, and then her lips are at his ear and she whispers, _you know what I want, don't you_?

He does, and he wriggles out far enough from beneath the blankets for her to drive long fingers into his chest. His ribs crack open, but she kisses his chin and the pain gets muddled up with the feel of her lips. She strokes his hair while the infection drains through the escape routes she tore through his skin—_I want you better I want you to live_, she says, and she lets him fold her hands between his after she stitches him closed again.

* * *

When he wakes again, he is alone and just well enough to struggle with the sheets until he gets himself propped up on his elbows. Even that effort leaves him trembling with effort. "Hatter," he says desperately into the emptiness—she promised, she _promised_—and the sunlight through the open blinds is too harsh for him to be searching like this, but Hatter—it wouldn't be the first promise she'd neglected to keep.

The bedroom door creaks open and she comes in, bearing a tray with tea. Relief saps the strength from his limbs, and he slumps back into the pillows, beaming at her stupidly. "Hatter…"

"Do you feel better?" she asks. Morris nods, because while he still aches all over, at least talking isn't excruciating. Hatter smiles, and he nearly loses himself in the perfect curve of her mouth and her eyes crinkled up at the corners the way they used to when she could be happy with him. "Would you like some tea? It's lemon ginger." She sets the tray down on the end table, and the porcelain rattles against the metal in jitters of strawberry-red.

"Yes, please," he says.

She hesitates before leaning down to help him sit up, and he winces at the necessity of something that bothers her so. Between his effort and hers, he gets propped up on the pillows with a warm cup in his hands. Hatter settles on the edge of the bed, looking wary, before pouring for herself.

Morris rummages through his memories of the recent past, but the fever insulated his sense of time too effectively. "How long…?"

Hatter, who had been on the point of drinking, lowers her teacup again. "A week since I've been here," she says. "But the fiends waited two days before they asked me to come. They were afraid—" She traces the rim of her cup with a fingernail. "How much do you remember?"

He closes his eyes and gets fleeting impression of unfocused, overpowering color shot through with Hatter's voice, of begging her to stay and how icy her hands felt when she held his. "Not much," he says. "Nothing solid." A few threads of an idea whip through his mind, and he frowns. "I felt like I was swimming."

"You mentioned water a lot," Hatter agrees. "N-nothing else?"

He remembers dreaming that he fed her his heart and how pleasant it was to finally have found a way to give her what she wanted, but his thoughts are linear enough now to keep it to himself. "No."

Hatter smiles, more softly than before. "Are you hungry at all?" She looks so hopeful that he can only shrug guiltily at the way his stomach turns over at the thought of eating. "Because the fiends brought in some soup about an hour ago—I think it's still warm."

Morris winces; the fiends are _his _responsibility, not the other way around, and were it not for that moment of stupid impulsivity, they wouldn't be having to go out of their way for him. Neither would Hatter. "I'm not hungry," he whispers. "I'm sorry."

"That's fine," she says, reaching out to rearrange his dreadlocks, not looking at him. "We all just want you to get better." She does not add "so the rest of us can get on with our lives," but Morris hears it all the same.

* * *

By the end of the day, he feels well enough to try some of the soup. His hands shake if he tries to move too quickly, so he eats at a glacial pace that doesn't merit the interest with which Hatter watches him. He's on the point of telling her that she needn't feel obligated to stay now that he can sit up on his own when someone knocks on the door and peeks in.

"How is he?" It's Mom's voice, but she sees Morris sitting up and doesn't give Hatter a chance to answer. "Morris, sweetheart, oh, I've been so worried—" She keeps murmuring variations on the same theme, and Hatter slips wordlessly out of the room so Mom can take her chair. "How do you feel, sweet?"

He shrugs and nudges the almost-finished bowl of soup around on his tray. "Better, I suppose."

Mom reaches over to clasp his wrist, the creases around her eyes and between her eyebrows deepening in concern. "We've all been so worried," she says again. "Even Cornelius came by, after the first day." Her attempt to to smile falters when Morris doesn't return it. "Did—" she glances toward the bedroom door. "Did she tell you how frightened everyone was that you wouldn't survive?"

Morris shakes his head and swallows hard against the sudden lump in his throat. Mom rearranges his silverware for him and fluffs up the pillows as best she can with him lying against them. "She probably didn't want to worry you unnecessarily," she says. "But you went into convulsions, the first day, and—" She closes her eyes, and Morris covers the hand on his wrist with his own until she composes herself again.

"I'm all right now," he says.

"Well," Mom says shakily, giving his wrist another squeeze. "You just rest and let the Hatter take care of you until you're completely better."

She gets up to leave and plants a kiss on his forehead, but before she can go completely, Morris blurts out, "There was a paradox. In my head." He can feel it still, skritching along his skull.

Mom looks at him with a terrible sympathy that he doesn't deserve. "You seem the same as ever to me, sweet," she says. "It was probably nothing."

He shrinks into the covers because she doesn't understand what he's trying to say or what it means that Hatter let it happen at all, that he's implicating himself as the reason Hatter abandoned them all, and he doesn't know how to make her listen. "Thank you," he says instead.

* * *

When he can walk again, Hatter helps him out to the Tea Party and settles him in her chair. There's a wry sort of humor in her eyes when she says, "You sit and drink and I'll do all the work," and he manages a weak chuckle even though the movement makes his whole chest ache dully. He feels better once the fiends are their and he can buoy himself up with their energy. Hatter flits between them but always manages to be at the center, because they gravitate around her so easily.

Even so, by the Tea Party's end, he's feeling as though his head is slowly filling with concrete, and it's almost a relief to say goodbye to the last of the fiends and just watch while Hatter gathers up the dishes to wash. "I have to return to the Glassland soon," she says while the sink fills up, and his heart collapses in on itself.

But it isn't about him and it never has been. He licks his lips and says, "I think you should stay. Because the fiends—All I can do for them is show them how to keep holding on. Without you, the Tea Party isn't—isn't all it could be. It's you they believe in, not me."

She stares into the water, and he examines the line of her shoulders and the tilt of her neck, wondering what she's thinking. "The Queen expects me to go back, is the thing," she whispers.

"So go back," Morris says. "Just, put in an appearance here more often. For the fiends."

Hatter nods slowly and seizes the nearest teacup, her movements jerky, like a puppet with its strings cut. "You wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not," Morris says. She glances over her shoulder at him, looking startled and maybe uncertain. "It's for the fiends," he adds, and wishes that were the only truth. It'll be easier to pretend at happiness with her around.


	30. Wonderland: Balance

**Balance**

Hatter cannot just stay with the Tea Party without arousing the Queen's ire, and considering what she's proven herself capable of, that's probably a good thing. As soon as Morris is well enough to handle things on his own, she retreats to her citadel, where the rewrites have been conspiring in her absence to keep things running. The Glassland is still bitterly cold and the citadel still feels like a prison, but Hatter walks through it with an almost-smile tugging at her mouth.

This time, for once, she managed to help instead of harm, enough for Morris to—not to forgive her, but at least agree to tolerate her. She attacks her work with renewed vigor, and finishes up an entire order of bowler hats for the Clubs before she retires for the evening.

She dreams of scaffolding and rainwater running over miles of pavement, punctured every few yards by dim orange light, and when she wakes up, the feel of an umbrella lingers in her hand for over an hour. It's too soon to go back to the Tea Party—not even a _day_ has passed—so she distracts herself with the tank. She models the controls after those of a scarab, and thinks that when it's finished, she'll let him test drive it with her. If he wants to, of course.

(_this doesn't change anything_) the Protocol says. (_you'd still destroy him if he gives you the opportunity_)

"No," she says. Hallucinations are one thing, but if she closes her eyes she can still picture Morris in perfect detail; when she arrived he was huddled under the quilt that he used to reserve for her on the mercury nights, his eyes twitching beneath closed eyes. His skin felt like a hotplate beneath her fingers, painful to the touch, and it was always worse when he was awake because he would stir and fret and stare at her with sightless eyes glazed over from fever. There was no pleasure in that.

(_of course not—you didn't cause it_) the Protocol says, sounding smug. Hatter shoves it, hard, and it retreats to the back of her mind in a sulk.

* * *

A week, she decides, is an adequate amount of time to wait before, as Morris put it, making an appearance. She leaves the citadel earlier in the day than is strictly necessary, but Morris doesn't seem put out in the least when she arrives with enough time to help him finish setting the table. "I thought you might change your mind," he says, as they top off the sugar bowls. "Or just be too busy—"

"No, of course not," Hatter says. "I wanted to see—the fiends." He grins at her, and while it isn't the ferociously sharp one that she remembers from before she attacked him, it still sparks against her sternum and she looks away, her cheeks heating up to the point of pain.

"They'll be very pleased to see you," Morris says. "They've been asking when you'd be back." There's no accusation in his tone, no barb buried between syllables, but Hatter feels the sting all the same.

"How are you feeling?" she asks timidly.

"I'm well enough to run the Tea Party," Morris says. His smile is barely a flicker along the edge of his lips, and it was a ridiculous question to ask in the first place because Hatter can see the dark bags under his eyes, how he's still nearly as pale as she is.

"You mustn't overtire yourself," she says. Morris bobs his head, looking annoyed, and she settles herself more firmly in place. He's always taken better care of the fiends than she; she might inspire them to better themselves, but when they're hurt or upset, it's Morris they turn to, just as she always has. If he thinks they need to see her now and then to stay happy, then she can't keep avoiding this place.

Morris keeps his distance and she takes great pains to avoid looking at him directly, but the week in the Glassland has done nothing to rebuild her resistance after the weeks of having him all to herself. Her heart accelerates to a pleasant rhythm at the mere thought that he's close enough to catch, if she came at the right angle and didn't let him get a running start. She shudders and does her best not to think about it while the water boils.

The Protocol stirs fitfully, and the movement upsets her careful reordering of her thoughts. Morris is juggling teapots and the kettle and a tin of red zinger, paying her very little attention—she could pin him against the cabinets if she moved fast enough, perhaps burn them both on the kettle but it wouldn't _matter _because she could see how his mouth tasted without the contradictory dance of darjeeling—and for that matter, the boiling water might make him scream—

Hatter digs her fingers into the undersides of the table until her knuckles hurt as much as the imagined sound, and by the time Morris brings the first pot to the table, she's composed again. "Are you all right?" he asks, and the Protocol mirrors him, swirling around her ear and whispering.

"Fine," Hatter mutters, wishing it was the Protocol at the other end of the table and Morris wrapped around her. At least then she could enjoy her own destruction. "I'm sorry, you don't deserve—this." She tries to include the enormity of everything she's done to him in the gesture. For a brief moment she sees in duplicates—Morris nods without looking at her, and behind him another, mistier Morris smirks and licks tea from his fingers before dissolving again.

(_you'll have to leave quickly_) the Protocol says, as if she needed telling.

"We have a little extra time," Morris says. "I wasn't expecting—well, would you like to see that glass tree I told you about?" He looks so hopeful that Hatter nods before she thinks through the implications of having him alone in a place that isn't the first people will look. He beckons for her to follow him and she does, because it can only be for a few minutes and nothing will happen if she focuses hard enough on her nails grinding into her palms instead of the flickers of other Morrises ghosting along beside them. The Protocol snaps at a few, and the rest cluster in around her, sneering, until it lashes out and they all fade.

She sees the tree as soon as they round the corner of her old workshop. It's a little taller than she is, made of glass so clear that, were it not for the distortion of light through it, it would be invisible. As they get closer, she recognizes the spot from which it grows, and her heart sinks. "I told you it was beautiful," Morris says, perhaps mistaking her dismay for mere surprise.

"This is where the mirror shards were buried," Hatter whispers.

"What?"

"From the old Hatter," she says, turning so she doesn't have to look at it. She can hear Morris shifting behind her and the click of the glass leaves fluttering in the breeze.

(_the tea party needs its hatter_) says the Protocol, sounding uncertain. (_this was all right, wasn't it?_)

It's almost a relief, how quickly the dark thoughts of what she could do to Morris evacuated her head. She barely hears him call her name when she flees back to the illusion of safety at the table.

"I'm sorry," Morris mumbles when he joins her, but there isn't time to tell him that he has nothing to be sorry for because the first of the fiends are arriving. They are, as he promised, delighted to see her, and she lets herself get swept up in their clamor.

Morris flits between them to refill their cups, and Hatter can't help circling on the table so he's never out of her sight. It's safe to look at him so long as there are others around, but all too soon they're gone again.

* * *

The moment the Tea Party is over, Hatter flees back to the comparative safety of the Glassland. She wants nothing more than to curl up in a corner somewhere and mourn, for Morris, for how everything she touches turns to rubble sooner or later and the Tea Party will be no exception, for how Alice made her a predatory _thing _that can't even be trusted to show mercy to what she loves—or whatever this violent facsimile of the feeling is.

Her head floods with voices that she doesn't recognize: childish questions and a man's exhausted attempts at anger, scorn and derision and dismissiveness, all overlapping one another and crowding out even the Protocol. She clutches her skull to hold it together, and feels her pulse tapping out the real one's name, ever-so-faintly. For the first time, she understands why the Queen might inflict upon herself the absence of a heart; a quiet, hollow place would be better than electricity through her mind with every beat.

Hatter never learnt the trick of removing a heart without blades, so her hands scrabble against bare skin and her only reward is stinging, red tracks over her chest and curls of her own flesh stuck beneath her fingernails. She can feel herself splintering and her insides shredding against the jagged edges; the last time this happened, she clawed her way forward until he was close enough to repair the fractures rupturing open along the pathways of her nerves.

This time there is something—there is _Alice_ prying her open from the inside, and she can see so clearly—beige hallways, harshly lit, bored students and crying children and a frustrated husband and hopes crashing against reality like waves breaking on a rock, againagainagain. The Protocol screams, a tortured sound that tugs her back together enough to see the clovers carved along the edge of the metal tiles she's lying on. The lines of the leaves spin and coalesce into broken pinstripes and a grin like the edge of a teacup, but the grin is for her agony and when she reaches for him, he bats her hand away and then melts into Alice's city of painful linearity.

Hours later, her head clears, and she lies on the floor for a while longer. Her head spins when she gets up, scrabbling against the wall for support. The Protocol lets out a concerned whine; even the imagined weight of it settling around her shoulders is enough to make her sway dizzily, and it retreats again. Half the thoughts in her head belong to Alice—she knows because none of them make any sense—and as she sorts through them in disgust—remembered arguments, future anxieties.

She wanders through her citadel until she arrives at her workshop. The chessboard in the middle is still inaccurate; there are and always have been two halves of a knight, rather than one whole. She slams the glass knight against the floor and it splits cleanly in two. The smaller piece can barely stay upright when she arranges them in their square again, which seems fitting.

* * *

She stays away for the rest of the month, but after this Party, Morris calls her back before she can flee.

"Yes?" She keeps the table between them, just in case.

"I'm not sure how well this is working," he says. "The fiends—well, they notice when you can't wait to leave." Hatter nods, waiting for him to say that it would be better for her not to come at all. "We should at least pretend to like each other, no matter how much y—we feel about the matter. To present a more united front, you see."

"That sounds prudent," Hatter agrees, stumbling a bit over the last word. "What do you propose we do?" If she stays a little longer every day, she could build up a tolerance again—it would be dangerous at first, but later… The Protocol grumbles, but she can't keep thinking about just Morris, not if the fiends are still upset.

He chews his lip and her insides somersault almost pleasantly. "For starters, may I prepare a pot of tea for your Hattress?"

She almost laughs and dares to sit on the edge of the table, the way she did before ruining everything. "I would like that." He busies himself with the kettle and a pair of teacups, and she stares at her own hands to keep from being hypnotized by his. "I think Alice is coming soon," she says as he finishes.

"Why?" Morris sits beside her, not as close as he used to but enough for her to feel warmed by proximity.

Hatter shrugs. "She's getting stronger. After the last time I visited, she…" But she can't find the words to explain the attack or the vast swaths of Alice's life that stuck in her mind and took days to fade away again. "I can do the dishes, tonight, if you'd like."

"I know you have work to do in the Glassland," he says. It's a clear dismissal and she finishes her tea in a few quick gulps.

"Thank you for this," she says, setting the cup down.

Morris reaches out and gives her hand a quick squeeze. "Take a pastry for the walk back; you look like you need it," he says. His smile seems genuine, and she, after brief hesitation, returns it happily. "And don't worry about Alice. We'll take care of her when she's here."

She snatches a lemon danish and eats it on her way to the Looking Glass. As she finishes and licks the filling from her fingers, she wonders if little steps like this wasn't the real answer all along. They'll still never be like they were before, but maybe this way they can find something resembling partnership again.


	31. Wonderland: Invasion

**Invasion**

The second Alice sets foot in Wonderland, every line of the Protocol's web goes taut, and she can feel the foundations of the very world trembling in welcome. Hatter bares her teeth and sinks her nails into her own forearms, ten points of pain to anchor her against the sudden, implacable pull leading to Alice. It tugs on her midsection, nearly driving her to her knees; perhaps she was wrong, and they aren't two halves of the same piece at all, merely opposing ones trying to occupy the same square.

She had not intended to visit the Tea Party today—it's too soon after the last time and the Queen will get suspicious—but an Alice who didn't stumble into the Tea Party would not be any kind of Alice at all. Her knuckles creak from clutching the tank's steering wheel too hard, and the Protocol flies ahead to drop the news that she's on her way into Morris's head. It snaps back to here moments later, humming. (_she isn't there yet_) it tells her. (_she's with the cheshire cat_)

If she closes her eyes, Hatter can see it: a stretch of marram grass that separates the edge of the Fractal Forest from the network of warehouses that line the docks, just off of the Mock Turtle's beach. She's never been there in person, but the Protocol fills in the details in a low whisper. The tank jolts as it rolls over a small dent in the ground, and she shakes the image away with a shudder. It still flickers in her peripherals; the muscles in her calves twitch when Alice starts to dance.

There's another disturbance around the Rabbit Hole as Hatter drives the tank through the Looking Glass; the Protocol whirs off to investigate, muttering darkly to itself about anomalies. Alice arrives at the Tea Party first, but Hatter ignores her as best she can in favor of the fiends, who at least aren't killing her with their very presence.

Out of recklessness or carelessness or a mix of both, Hatter lets the talk skirt closer than ever to that of open rebellion. "If there existed a way to take everything you ever wanted with no shame or pain or judgment, wouldn't you take it?" she says, her voice almost a snarl. The fiends crow in agreement; even the four knights who must have grown bored of chess and come to Wonderland for a brief respite seem carried away in excitement.

She smiles around at them all, the fiends and the knights and Alice's little entourage, and Alice herself last of all, scared and vulnerable-looking on the table. Morris did well in placing her there. "Or would you accept the Queen's tyranny as a fait accompli?" Her smile widens to a grin when the fiends chorus back their outrage at the very idea. "Of course you wouldn't." Alice squirms in her chair, and Hatter can feel her counterpart's discomfort reverberating inside her own chest. To her, it feels almost like triumph.

Morris leaps up to offer her a cup of tea, and she takes the pot instead because it's larger and it'll steady her better. She drinks to hide her grin when Alice expresses her doubt that she could _really_ be the Hatter—"she's a _she_," Alice says, sounding indignant that anyone who is only an incomplete shadow could make something of herself. Even so, Alice's incredulity makes her knees tremble, so she moves to keep from collapsing on someone. "So let _me _be that way," she says, more loudly than necessary. "Go out and replace the world you see with the one you want, and let me bear the weight of the iniquities that make it possible." It's not as if she's ever done anything different and, besides, deposing the Queen will be doing everyone a favor. "All I ask in return is loyalty."

All around her, the fiends cheer again and then babble excitedly among themselves of their plans for the future, and she allows herself a moment to pretend that Alice isn't hovering over them all like a storm cloud before calling Morris to her.

"Who is this gatecrasher?" she asks, in her most dismissive tone, and Alice rewards her by turning towards her—Hatter will not call them friends, but the people who brought her here, with a look reminiscent of a lost puppy. "She's not on my guest list." The fiends who are near enough to be paying attention titter at the idea of a _guest list_, but Morris only smirks.

"I thought you'd like to meet her," he says. "She says her name is Alice."

Hearing it out loud makes the reality of it all come crashing in, and she peers more closely at her original self. She looks for the resemblance, at first, but she knows her own face so well that all she can see are the difference: Alice is smooth curves and unfocused niceties instead of sharp lines and biting clarity, and her eyes are more innocent than Hatter would have expected from the woman who's spent the last twenty-one years tormenting her. Her lips curl. "Not what I expected."

_Now _she sees the coldness she expected as Alice sizes her up in return. "I'm a big disappointment to myself, as well," she says.

Morris places a rose in her hands before her lungs can crumple completely, and she holds it tight enough to pierce through her gloves—her blood will make the fresh blossom wither, but that matters less than not letting herself be ripped apart in front of the fiends. She knows it'll be easier if she keeps talking, so she says, "It's a shame they have to fade so soon, isn't it?" even as the stem starts to shrivel up in her grasp.

"What?"

"The flowers, Alice," Hatter snaps, pressing her fingers onto the thorns even harder when Alice steps close enough for Hatter to smell her vanilla perfume. The petals begin to crumble, and her rambling becomes an attack. "What a shame that they must wither and die." She tries to smile and ends up grimacing painfully. "But if they didn't die, there'd be no room for new flowers to grow, would there?"

She can tell Alice doesn't make the connection even before she says, "That's the way it is with everything." Or else the lack of fear in Alice's eyes stems from confidence instead of stupidity—Hatter's insides begin to freeze at the thought.

"A little girl grows up with a sense of wonder and hope, but quickly becomes a woman and forgets all the dreams that reside in her head—" She's almost spitting now, but Morris sidles up next to her with an empty teacup and it's the most marvelous idea he's ever had. "Let's read your tea leaves, shall we?" Alice's eyes widen—she's startled, _finally_.

Hatter wanted recognition, but what she gets is Alice, failed writer, failed mother, failed wife, failed teacher, failed everything. Alice, who refuses to listen and refuses to learn and _still _doesn't understand what's going to happen to her now that she's here. She doesn't need the dregs at the bottom of the cup to tell her what to say. "You're moody, unfocused, can't take the pressure—"

Morris joins in with glee and then the fiends get in on it too, and Alice's fear and bewilderment tangles with the terror already building in Hatter's chest because this still isn't enough because her very foundation is withered and lost and _forgettable_. She steals the cup back and her voice climbs to a shout, advancing on Alice, who looks more deeply wounded than Hatter could have hoped. "Won't stand up for herself—doesn't play well with others—doesn't like herself—doesn't know why she's here—doesn't get the game—" No, that isn't quite right, and she corrects herself, "doesn't _play_ the game—"

Someone else shouts, and she blinks at the man who dared to interrupt her. He's glaring at her as if she attacked _him _instead of Alice, but she's certain she's never seen him before even though he's dressed in the uniform of a white knight. She returns his glare until he starts to sink back down again.

A fanfare that Hatter knows very well interrupts him before he can, and he bounds up with the rest of them. Alice is the only own who looks startled instead of terrified. Morris is still where she left him, and Hatter throws caution to the winds and lunges at him when Alice drifts toward the man who defended her. He catches her—catches the cup in her hands, and as long as she holds on to that, she'll stay upright.

"How good of the Queen to drop in on us," he prompts her, and she welcomes the script he's offering her, the return to the familiarity of a planned coup instead of Alice's invasion.

"And how good it'll be to drop the axe on her," she mutters so only he can hear, and follows him to the relative safety of the table. Alice lingers where she stands, and her companions have evidently filled her in on some of the details because she looks more worried now.

The Queen arrives without an entourage of Spades, which means this is a social call, not something to do with Alice. Hatter relaxes a bit and falls into the more familiar habit of nodding along and smiling at whatever the Queen says. If she plays her cards right, maybe she can convince the Queen that Alice needs to die. Anything new is dangerous, after all, and this wouldn't be the first time a would-be assassin came from another world.

Hatter lets her eyes glaze over while she thinks through the various possibilities, but then the Queen demands her attention and she catapults off of the table to bow. "I'd heard that you ventured here from your side of the Looking Glass," the Queen says severely.

"Just trying to rally support for your efforts here in Wonderland," Hatter says, with an extra bow.

The Queen gives a tiny nod of satisfaction, but when she speaks, there's still an underlying threat in her voice. "I put you in charge of the land beyond the Looking Glass because I needed someone with a good head on her shoulders," she says, cocking an eyebrow. "We've been running below in that department lately. I'm not sure why." Her eyes turn colder by degrees, and Hatter offers her the only acceptable response, which is a weak giggle to match those of her attendants.

It's Alice who saves her. "Excuse me, your majesty—"

"Off with her head," the Queen says automatically. "But Hatter, I don't understand why you'd host another Tea Party without inviting _me_—" She looks genuinely upset, which is even more worrying than the casual threats of before.

Fortunately, Alice has all the self-preservation of a lemming. "Your highness, I beg your pardon—literally!—because if you behead me I won't be able to escort you to your new kingdom—"

Hatter's heart skips a beat, but the Queen says, "Why does she still have a head?" with no small amount of irritation, so Hatter claps and Morris is already reaching for his axe when the Queen processes what Alice just told her and halts the execution.

Alice is bluffing—she must be bluffing—two and a half million is more people than Wonderland and the Glassland combined can boast to by _far_, but the Queen doesn't seem to hear the note of hysteria that borders Alice's voice and she's playing right into Alice's hands. Queen of all Queens, indeed.

"Your majesty," Hatter dares to say, because there's the slightest sliver of a chance that it might work, "Off with her head—"

"Off with yours if you don't watch it, and your little sombrero will go with it," the Queen says, sneering; she's in one of her unforgiving moods today, it seems. "Remember, there is always the ultimate decree—"

Hatter has no idea what that is, but Morris flinches and the Protocol snarls in her head, so she keeps her head down. "No, please," she says, while the Protocol's web vibrates hard enough to make her limbs ache. "We don't want the ultimate decree—"

The Queen wanders off with Alice in tow, and the Protocol calms down enough to use actual words. (_you mustn't let her use that!_) it hisses.

"I won't, I won't," Hatter mutters under her breath, trailing after the Queen in hopes of overhearing something useful. The Queen's magic billows out to block Alice's voice, though, and she's surprised by how much the snub stings. It's because of Alice, it must be, Alice toying with her head more freely now that they're in the same world. "Alice is a threat to me in every way," she shrills, when she realizes Morris is close enough to hear and, perhaps, offer some advice. Her legs tremble along with her hands this time.

The fiends nearest to them look around, as startled by her outburst as Morris is. "I've been perfectly positioned to take the throne," she says for their benefit, quieter.

"You had everyone at the Tea Party eating out of your hand," Morris agrees, and she seizes the hand he offers to keep from shaking apart. It's been a long time since she touched him—she doesn't remember his hands being this deliciously warm, but she never wants to let go.

The Protocol whines, twisting back and forth through her thoughts, its anxiety a reflection of her own and Alice's. "But now Alice is buttering up the Queen, trying to become a favorite of the court—" It shouldn't matter, not when Alice will only be here for a day, but with the Queen already angry it could be disastrous. "We have to deal Alice a backhanded hand from the deck and deck her—" But no, that isn't quite what she meant—

Morris seems to understand what she intended, though, because he grins and it's oddly intoxicating. "Call me crazy if you like," he says, and she never wants to deny him what he asks for.

"You're crazy," she says, and his grin widens even further.

"Did you like it?"

As if he even needs to ask when calling him names is enough to make him look this viciously gleeful. "Yes—"

"Well, I have a plan so heartlessly hateful I have to think you're really going to love it," he says—almost snarls, really, which makes her stomach flutter. He keeps hold of her hand as he pulls her away from the table, and it's not until they're safely out of sight that he lets go and she tries to compose herself again.

* * *

It's the first time she's been alone with Morris outside the Tea Party since his sickness, but her practice at keeping a safe distance and the thought of Alice looming over everything is enough to keep her focused. "Where are we going?"

"We'll need your tank," Morris says, "and then we're going to find the Rabbit Hole—right now it's a service elevator in Alice's apartment." He takes a deep breath. "What we need is to incapacitate Alice, which means we have to get her away from the Queen first, which means the Glassland, and to get her there we'll need some kind of bait."

"Her family," Hatter says.

"Exactly. I was thinking her daughter. Her name's Chloe—the White Rabbit told me. Alice thought he was her science project, apparently."

Hatter nods slowly. "Children are small and easily transportable and more trusting—" Her hands start shaking again, worse than before, so Morris helps her into the tank before settling in the driver's seat. She settles back and when she closes her eyes, she sees Alice alone, still at the table, looking morose.

"You know," Morris says after a moment, "if I had to guess, I'd think that you were the original and she was the reproduction." Outside the tank, something _ding_s softly, and he parks carelessly.

"Thank you," she says, and follows him out into the service elevator. The doors slide open, and she peers through them into Alice's world. It's dustier than she expects. "I thought only the White Rabbit could go up and down the Rabbit Hole," she says, and regrets it right away because Morris deflates.

"I'm the March _Hare_, remember," he says sulkily. "Why does the White Rabbit land all the press? He gets the watch… the sympathy…" She can tell he's more hurt than he's letting on, so she reaches out to toy with his dreadlocks for a second before moving onto Alice's daughter. The girl can't be more than eleven or so, with thick brown hair that's nothing like Alice's—or Hatter's, for that matter—but something about of the tilt of her head as she reads is both familiar and incredibly inviting. Her hands itch to be wrapped around that slender throat.

"Hello, Chloe," she says instead.

The girl doesn't scream, to her credit, but she does leap off the bed as if stung, clutching her book defensively to her chest. "You scared me!"

Hatter feels her mouth stretching into the false, honey-sweet smile she uses with the Queen. "I get that a lot," she says, and the Protocol mutters disapprovingly. "Let me introduce myself. My name is the Mad— my name is Madeline, you can call me Maddie—" she hears Morris's badly-concealed snort of laughter as she goes to shake Chloe's hand. The girl still looks suspicious, so she casts about through her memories of Alice and comes up with, "I'm your parents marriage counselor."

It's the wrong thing to say; Chloe frowns. "My parents didn't say—"

"Your mother kept it a secret because she didn't want you to have false hope," Hatter says, showing her teeth in what she can only hope looks like a grin. "But. My first session with your parents is going so well—" she glances over at Morris, who nods encouragingly "—that I wanted you to join us at my office this very minute." She plucks the book out of Chloe's grip, and it twitches in her hands as the Protocol recognizes it.

Chloe's frown shifts slowly into a smile. "Really?"

Hatter assures her that it's true—and it is, for a given value of true; marriage problems are most easily resolved with the death of one or both—and that all it would take is one night of neglected responsibilities on Chloe's part.

"If you think it would help," Chloe says, excited now, and Hatter lets out a squeal that sounds like fingernails against glass.

"I told you she'd help, didn't I, nurse—" she scrambles for an idea and can come up with nothing better than "Gerbil," which makes Morris bare his teeth. She'll apologize to him later, after the girl is safely in custody.

"You certainly did, Doctor Hatter," he says.

"I'll just tell my grandmother I'm going with you," Chloe says, and Hatter barely restrains herself from lunging after her. The last thing she wants is for Chloe to scream.

"No. That… would violate medical confidentiality," she says. "This is strictly for the immediate family." Chloe takes a few steps closer to her, and she smiles. "If your grandmother found out I'd have to cancel the treatment." She feels a rush of satisfaction when Chloe's face crumples, and adds sweetly, "You wouldn't want that, would you?"

That's all it takes to get Chloe to return. "I'd hate to let your family down," Hatter says. "Your mother and I are—very close."

Chloe looks startled, but Hatter doesn't give her time to work out that she's lying. "Come. It's such a nice night; let's stroll to my—car and we can get better acquainted." She tosses the book down and wraps Chloe in the coat on the bed—it _is _cold in the citadel, and she'd hate for the girl to freeze before they could capture Alice.

As soon as they're in the service elevator again, Wonderland's dreamlike logic takes over again, so Chloe doesn't appear to notice that they never reach the bottom and that branches start growing out of the walls. She does notice the tank, still waiting for them in the back of the elevator.

"Like it?" Hatter asks, grinning in spite of herself. "I designed it myself."

"It's an ecological nightmare," Chloe says; Hatter can tell from her tone that it's meant to be an insult, and she glowers.

"It's the fastest way to the—to her practice," Morris says.

They spend the next few moments coaxing Chloe into the tank itself—her doubts prove to be fractal—and then it's only a matter of handcuffing her to the ladder leading up to the trapdoor once they're far enough away that her grandmother won't hear her screaming for help.

* * *

They're nearly to the Looking Glass and Hatter is just wondering whether it would be worth it to tear off some of her skirt to use as a gag when the tank begins to slow; she looks around to see the White Rabbit waving his hands at the windshield. "What does he want?"

Morris shrugs, and Hatter detaches Chloe from the ladder long enough for him to climb up. He leaves the trapdoor up, so she can hear the White Rabbit ask whether they've seen the service elevator. "Tell him the truth," Hatter says.

"We've just come from there, but it went into flux again as we were leaving," Morris says brightly.

"What?"

Hatter climbs up herself, dragging Chloe along behind until they're both far enough out of the trapdoor for the White Rabbit to see. "This is her daughter," Hatter tells him, giving Chloe a little shake. "Tell Alice that if she wants to see her again, she'll meet me in the citadel." She lets go of Chloe, and the girl drops back into the tank with a little cry when she hits the floor.

The White Rabbit blanches. "Why? The Queen is one thing, Hatter, but—"

"What I do is my business," Hatter says coldly. "Tell her."

He runs; Morris follows her back into the tank and throws it into gear while she chains Chloe to the ladder again. "What are you going to do to my mom?" Chloe whimpers. Hatter ignores her.


	32. Wonderland: Betrayal

**Betrayal**

"Hatter!" Alice's voice slashes between Hatter's eyes and buries itself in her brain like an axe. Her vision flickers out, but she can feel Alice's fury thundering through her veins. "If you dare to touch a _single_ hair on Chloe's head, I swear I'll make you pay—"

She slams her hands over her ears, as if that will help, but Alice slips enough for her to drag herself out from her counterpart's claws. Someone else is shouting her name—not someone, Morris—she reaches for the sound and finds the corner of his coat. The wool scratches beneath her shaking hands. "Hatter—Hatter, it's going to be all right—Hatter—"

Her lungs seize up and she chokes on her explanation. "Alice—"

Morris drops one hand from the steering wheel to touch her shoulder, and the press of damp fabric into her back makes her realize she's sweating so heavily that even her jacket is soaked through. "You're going to be fine," Morris whispers, and the lie creeps over her limbs like frost.

Behind them, Chloe says, "What's going on? What's wrong with her?"

"Shut up," Morris snarls.

She licks her lips and tastes blood, though whether it's from biting her tongue or the insides of her cheeks or simply the mercury pushing through her gums, Hatter isn't sure. She wriggles away from Morris's touch. "She's coming through the Looking Glass."

"We're almost to the citadel," Morris says. "Another square—"

Hatter lets her head rest against he tank's floor; it's been warmed by the engine and the heat soothes the tension ringing her skull. "You alert the rewrites," she says. "I need to—to change."

"Of course."

Morris stops the tank just inside the citadel, long enough for her to scramble out of it and stumble into the nearest rewrite, who helps to her toward her bedroom while Morris steers the tank deeper in. She exchanges her still-damp clothes for something heavy enough to trap what little heat that remains in her body and solid enough to keep her from falling apart at the seams if Alice attacks her again.

She meets Morris in the courtyard above the generator. "The rewrites have been notified," he says. "It's only a matter of time before Alice is captured—"

"Good," she says. She can see the concern in his eyes, that he's about to ask how she feels, but she stops him before he can—they both need to stay on track. "Bring in the bait." Her grin feels like it's cut with glass.

(_alice_) the Protocol whispers. (_focus on alice—and getting rid of the queen, you can easily do both_)

She nods and follows the line of thought it provides for her: two axes falling on the right necks is all it will take. Seven, if she wishes to really do the thing properly and clear out all the important witnesses. She shudders, but Morris brings in the tank and Chloe is there and there's no more time to hesitate.

"Last stop," she sings out, horrified by how _cheerful_ she manages to sound. "End of the line, Chloe. Did you enjoy the ride?"

Chloe glowers at her. "I'm beginning to suspect you're not a marriage counsellor at all," she snaps, but there's very real fear in her eyes. Hatter hopes that Alice can see it.

"On behalf of our entire flight crew, welcome to your final destination—the citadel in Looking Glass Land, where the current temperature is a cold wind in August," Hatter chirps, because it's possible Alice can _hear_, too.

Morris chimes in as she unlocks the bindings holding Chloe in place, but all this relative freedom seems to manage is incensing the girl even more. "I'll report you to—"

Hatter snarls in time with the Protocol for once. "There's only one person above me in all of Wonderland, kiddo," she spits, smirking in satisfaction when Chloe shrinks back. In her peripheral vision, a misty axe falls. "But not for much longer." Morris is looking at her again, concern still in his eyes. "Take her to the tallest tower," she says, and the concern deepens even as he steers Chloe in the right direction. "But she's not to be harmed, at—at least not yet."

The rage and terror battling across Chloe's face burn into her retinas as Morris drags the girl away. (_it's necessary_) the Protocol whispers over and over, and Hatter twists her fingers together to stop them from shaking. Seven axes, seven heads, and this will all be over—two threats to herself and to Wonderland disposed of at once.

If she closes her eyes, she can feel the creeping vines of Alice's fear, for herself and for Chloe, clambering steadily up her legs and wrapping around her torso, ready to contract and squeeze the remaining life out of her. One of them is going to die before the day is out, and it _will_ be Alice, because—because—

(_you have _me_,_) the Protocol breathes. (_you're _better _because you're _mine)

The arrival of a rewrite with her prisoners in tow saves her from answering. "These three have broken through the Looking Glass—" the rewrite begins.

"That's twenty-one years of bad luck for them," Hatter says. Her voice cracks when she remembers that they won't be alive for even one.

"They fought so fiercely, we were unable to capture Alice of Queens, and the White Rabbit," the rewrite adds, and a collection of fish-hooks sinks into her intestines.

"Search every square of the board until they're found," Hatter snaps before turning her attention to the prisoners. The one in front is Alice's pet knight, and he glares up at her with all the ferocity of a bandersnatch.

His hands are bound and he's at _her _mercy, though, so she feels a humorless smile stretching across her face. "See how the mighty stupid have fallen? Most of my prisoners get their brains turned into tapioca—" she nods toward the rewrites still gathered alongside the prisoners, and the knight's scowl deepens. "But you three?" One of the axes that exist only in her mind cuts through her stomach, and she teeters before recovering herself. "I'll reduce your collar size by a good sixteen inches."

"You don't frighten us," the knight says, his voice commendably steady. "Why do you have it in for Alice?"

Of _course _Alice would direct them into a trap without telling them all of the truth. "Before I laid it to ruin," she says, getting closer so he'll be certain to understand, "the fields of this land formed a chessboard—and the rules state that two pieces cannot occupy the same square at the same time. One of them must take the other."

The knight blinks at her once, slowly, and she gives him another brittle smile that does nothing to move him. Alice, perhaps, will understand better. "You'll come to me, Alice; I'm holding a little pawn you dare not sacrifice—" She has no idea if Alice heard her, but she grins down at the prisoners anyway. "And your friends will not be alive to help you."

She wonders what she'll do with the heads of five innocent victims, but she gives the order to prepare the prison for executions nonetheless. The knight struggles to his feet. "Cowards die many times, Hatter," he says, and now she can hear emotion in his voice—fear or disgust, she can't tell. "The valiant die but once."

As if she didn't _know_ that already, but dead is still _dead_ and he, at least, will meet a quick end on the edge on an axe instead of suffocating or being crushed— "You'll find, White Knight, that once will be enough," she says. The rewrite drags him away again, and she props herself up on the memorial. "I'm not sure—" she whispers.

(_it's the best way—he's the queen's son, i can't fix him_)

Hatter blinks. "That's _Jack_?" She supposes she can see the resemblance to the little boy she knew so long ago—the same short brown hair, eyes of the same shade of hazel. "What's he doing here?"

(_he came down after alice_) the Protocol whispers.

She's still ruminating over this new revelation and losing at chess against herself when Morris jogs into the courtyard. "The chessmen found my cousin," he says. "On the outskirts of the bandersnatch runs—he came from Dodgson's sanctum." His voice trembles, just slightly, and another thick coil of guilt twists up in her stomach.

"And Alice?"

He smiles, much too gently for the subject matter. "Still in the sanctum," he says. "There's only one exit and there are rewrites waiting outside." He moves jerkily, like he'd reached out to touch her and then thought better of it. "I'll deal with her when they bring her in."

"The lower dungeons are more secure," Hatter whispers, and he nods.

* * *

She waits until Alice is securely imprisoned before going to the Queen with the order for execution. "Your majesty," she says, with a low bow when she's escorted into the throne room. "I come with grave news, I'm afraid."

The Queen raises an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"I've discovered a plot to overthrow you, your majesty, on the brink of completion—but my guards caught most of the inner circle and they're in holding cells in my citadel as we speak."

"Traitors, you say?" She turns away, turning her scepter in her hands. "My own subjects wanting to overthrow me?"

Hatter dons her best sympathetic face. "Led by Jack the White Knight—" the Queen twitches visibly, and Hatter breathes a little easier. "—and that impostor, Alice of Queens."

"Thank goodness you captured them," the Queen says, and Hatter bows again. "It'll be off with their heads—no, I should banish them to the land beneath Wonderland, from which there is no return—"

The Protocol growls. (_don't let her use the decree—_)

"No!" Hatter says, too sharply; the Queen narrows her eyes. "Beheading is your specialty…" She makes her smile as enticing as possible, and the Queen relaxes again. "However, I would like to execute the prisoners at my prison, as I have security concerns about transporting—"

"But only _I _can behead people," the Queen says.

"Of course, which is why I need your written permission, as long as you're Queen—" The Queen must think her more trustworthy than Hatter thought, because she doesn't notice the threat implicit in the qualification. "It's quite a list."

"Seven beheadings?" the Queen says, sounding pleased. "But I see only six names?"

"The seventh is a wildcard slot," Hatter tells her, and the Queen beams.

"Sounds like quite a show," the Queen says, and Hatter reflects her excitement back at her when she claps her hands together. "I shall want to be there."

It's almost too easy, and her smile comes more naturally than it ever has before in the Queen's presence. "Yes, you have to come," she says, removing the jubjub-feather quill from her hatband and handing it over so the Queen can sign.

"Save a nice seat for me," the Queen says, with a wry smirk.

"I'll put you right by the chopping block," Hatter assures her. The Queen still sees nothing amiss, and Hatter makes her excuses and takes her leave the moment the order is back in her hands. She waits until she's safely back in her office in the citadel before filling in _Cora Mills _on the last line, and then, while her forearms begin to prickle, she shoves the order into the nearest drawer and flees.

She finds Morris below, sharpening his axe. "Did you get it?" he asks.

"It's in my desk," she says, running one of his dreadlocks between her fingers. "She'll be here soon and then—"

Morris tilts the axe, and for a heartbeat she sees her own reflection, distorted by the curve of the metal. It sneers back at her. "I'll take care of it for you," he says quietly.

* * *

Hatter leaves Morris to deal with the executions and wanders through the upper chambers of her tower, waiting for it to be over so she can be the Queen and have at least _one _thing go right. Long-ago echoes of breaking stone and panicked screams resound in her ears—because of the Glassland, she tells herself sharply, not a final warning to herself. She welcomes the alarm bells that drive the ghosts away, though the Protocol growls more ferociously than she's ever heard before.

She goes slowly down to her office, where the door is ajar and the rustling of paper comes from within. The Protocol snarls, but it seems to her that she's always known that this is how it would end: herself, unnoticed in the doorway, and he, examining the roll of paper that will mean the Queen's death and Alice's if it doesn't mean her own. The confirmation still sends a jolt of electricity through her legs so she must hold on to the doorframe to keep upright.

"Morris," she whispers, needing to see the condemnation in his eyes. It isn't there when he looks up at her, or she can't find it if it is, and Hatter drifts forward like a dream while his hands clench and unclench around the execution order.

His mouth opens and a weak noise strains out of it, a wordless question or a dying apology. She catches him before he can look away from her and tries to lose himself in his eyes—they're fearful, yes, and she can see the tears welling up in them, but still there's no sign of the anger that there ought to be. The Protocol reaches for him, spitting half-coherent insults.

Something snaps inside of her—not audibly, but she can feel the give as whatever-it-is breaks, and the broken end of it digs into her lungs—a rib collapsed from the pressure of the outside at last, perhaps. She lets her lips crash against his, and he gives her a startled cry just like before; the Protocol yelps in outrage. This time when she splits his lip with her teeth, it's intentional, and his blood tastes like victory until he reaches for her. His hands glide over her shoulders, and whether he's aiming to snap her neck or simply too blind to recognize her for the predator she truly is, it's clear she can't stay here any longer. She shoves him away; he rebounds off the desk, barely catching himself quickly enough to stay on his feet.

There is still blood on her lips, and the taste of it reminds her of why she can't follow him. Hatter stumbles back toward the door instead. "Enjoy your life without me," she breathes, wishing she had learnt to say it sooner. She slams the door behind her when she flees.

* * *

She changes her clothes again. It seems only fitting, if she is to die at the hands of her alternate and better self, to go out in her best. Besides, it will give Morris enough time to be thorough with his betrayal.

Alice is with her knight in the memorial courtyard—which seems right, for Hatter to end in sight of the glass ghosts of her past victims. "I want my daughter!" Alice screams the moment she sees Hatter, and the unfiltered fury in such close proximity drives itself through each individual cell. She closes her eyes until she's steady again.

"First, a final riddle, _Alice_," Hatter says. Jack pulls Alice away, blathering about protecting her, but Alice shakes him off. She knows, just as Hatter does, that this was always how it would be.

"Tell me your riddle," she says, eyes blazing.

There _is _no riddle, not when Alice knows the answer already, but she seizes the chance to fight back just for a few more minutes nevertheless. "Though eyes I have, they have no sight. I can't be seen in black of night. If you move left, then I move right. In looking glass, I come to light." She dares to look back at Alice, expecting derision, but all she sees is dawning comprehension and—fear? horror? The realization steals her breath away; two decades of suffering and Alice _didn't know_—didn't even bother to _find out_. "Who am I?" she asks, softer.

Alice shakes her head minutely, as if she can't quite believe it herself. "You're… my reflection?"

"Very good, Alice," Hatter whispers. "I'm your alter-ego." Alice shudders, leaning away like that will make this not be happening. "You were meant to come here years ago, but…" Her throat constricts—Alice was supposed to be the one with _answers_. "When real life interrupted your childhood, I came into being." It's as good an explanation as any, and the Protocol makes no argument. "Since then, every time someone's broken a promise to you or broken your heart—" Her own heart is stuttering just like everything else in her body, making her dizzy. "That has become a part of me."

"Then I'm sorry for you," Alice says; the pity in her eyes burns more than anger ever could.

"Don't be. I'm all you wish you were."

_There _is the disgust she expected. "No," Alice says coldly. "For all my ups and downs, I'm glad I'm who I am."

Of course. She would have to be, and she hears the fanfare even though it's muffled by the ringing in her ears. She swivels around on automatic and bows and almost manages to be grateful when Alice answers for her, because she's misplaced her lungs and doubts her ability to speak.

The execution list goes from Alice's hand to the Queen's, and Hatter hears death reaching for her like the sound of an axe hissing through the air. Her heart collapses and splits in two at last, and the blood seeps weakly out of it and she doesn't know why _this _broken promise should be the one that finally destroys her, nor why she was still hoping after learning so many times not to.

She sees in frames—the world changing incrementally with each stilted breath—as the Queen gives her sentence and Alice tries to intercede. "You don't have to be alone," Alice whispers. "Come home to me."

Hatter's barely aware of whispering back that yes, she wants that—and she would, if it were truly possible. Alice's hand, reaching for her own, too trusting, stands alone and lasts forever while the Protocol lets out a plaintive cry.

The knife that she has never used but carries always fits in her hand like it grew there—Morris's mouth brushes her ear and he whispers, again, _I like metaphors_, but she blinks and he's gone and Alice's pulse is hers as Hatter pulls her close and holds the blade to her throat, needing—something—_anything_—nothing that Alice can give her. But if Alice dies, then maybe so will she and death, at least, will be peaceful. "We'll be together forever," she croons, while the Protocol wails.

"Hatter—" the Queen's voice, strangely unhappy, cuts through the cacophony in her head. "Let her go and I'll give you half the queendom—"

She almost laughs. "I don't want half of _anything_—"

But she blinks and Alice is torn from her grip and the ground opens up beneath her feet. Jack's hands make manacles around her wrists, too tight for her to stab him as he deserves for ruining her last, tiny hope, so she kicks instead. A gust of wind buffets them apart; he flies sideways and she tumbles further down. She hits dark, frigid water, and as it closes over her head she breathes it in desperation.

The last thing she hears is the Protocol shrieking.

* * *

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**AN:** and _fin._

Thank you to those of you who stuck with it to the end and especially the ones who left reviews; you're all lovely people and I do immensely appreciate your feedback.

The canon dialogue used in chapters 31 and 32 is taken almost verbatim from the post-Broadway-opening show, with some very minor alterations to allow for my own fanon; I have VOBs of the May 12th performance and an audio recording of the closing show. If you want either or both of them, email me from the link on my profile.

UPDATE: The first sequel is in process now and can be found here: s/9665381/1/Alimento-Mori


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